Monthly Archives: December 2017

legal news

Judicial nominee hits the road after embarrassing moment

Matthew Peterson got himself nominated for a lifetime job as a federal judge.

Then he had to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., had the temerity to ask Peterson a series of questions.

Had he ever tried a criminal case? A civil case? Had he ever argued before an appellate court? Umm. No on all three questions.

The exchange went viral, thanks to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sending out via Twitter. See the video here.

Peterson withdrew his nomination today. He told Donald Trump he didn’t want to be a “distraction.”

I baffled on where to begin with this one.

I’m glad Peterson pulled out. He doesn’t belong on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. The young man needs some experience, um, trying cases in an actual courtroom. 

The most stunning aspect of this nomination is how in the world the president of the United States could put someone so wholly unqualified up for examination by the Senate judiciary panel. Did the president’s “fine-tuned machine” get all gummed up? It clearly failed to vet this fellow.

Good grief, man! I would think one of the questions one could ask a judicial nominee would be: Have you ever tried a case — in a courtroom? In front of a judge and a jury?

If the answer is “no,” then you move on to the next name on your list. Wouldn’t that work?

national news

Oh, yeah, the victims … the victims, Mr. President

On occasion, it’s worth noting that the initial response to tragedy can be construed as the thing that comes to one’s mind first.

An Amtrak train derailed this morning between Seattle and Tacoma, Wash. Millions of Americans saw the TV coverage live at the time and thought, “Oh, my goodness! Those poor passengers … and the motorists who were caught on the interstate highway below!”

How did the president of the United States respond immediately?

He tweeted some nonsense about how the accident makes it imperative for Congress to enact an infrastructure improvement plan he has put forward.

Critics jumped all over Donald Trump for the seeming insensitivity in that initial Twitter message. He then fired off another one expressing his dismay for the victims and offered prayers for them.

Fine, Mr. President. We appreciate the thoughts and good wishes.

Many of us would think more of them if they were contained in the president’s initial response to the tragic derailment.

environmental news, State news

Climate change made Harvey wreckage worse? Who knew?

Imagine my (non)surprise to read that independent analyses have concluded that climate change likely worsened the misery that Hurricane Harvey brought this summer to the Texas Gulf Coast.

The rainfall that inundated the coast totaled 50 inches in a 24-hour period; it set a continental U.S. record for most rain to fall during a single day.

Get a load of this: Researchers say that climate change — or you can call it “global warming” — worsened the rainfall by about 15 percent.

Not that a 15-percent increase created the tragedy that brought so much suffering to Houston, the Coastal Bend and the Golden Triangle. A 40-inch rainfall would have done plenty of damage, too … correct?

According to the Texas Tribune: ” … two independent research teams, one based in The Netherlands and the other in California, reported that the deluge from Hurricane Harvey was significantly heavier than it would have been before the era of human-caused global warming. One paper put the best estimate of the increase in precipitation at 15 percent. The other said climate change increased rainfall by 19 percent at least, with a best estimate of 38 percent.”

Read the Tribune story here.

However, the federal government keeps insisting that climate change is a “hoax,” that it’s a made-up creation of “fake news” and the Chinese government, which is trying to undermine the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

It’s no hoax. We can debate its cause. I happen to believe human activity has contributed to climate change. To call it a phony story, though, puts millions of Americans in extreme peril.

political news

What? They haven’t read the tax cut bill? Shocking!

Congressional Republicans got all over congressional Democrats for their alleged failure to “read the Affordable Care Act” before enacting it into law in 2010.

So, what’s been the GOP response? They’ve done precisely the same thing with regard to the tax cut that’s about to become law.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who famously said he didn’t want to blow up the budget deficit with the tax cut, now says he favors it. He also admits to not yet reading the bill before changing his mind.

How is it that it’s OK for one side to do the thing they castigate the other side of doing?

Democrats, to be fair, need to be mindful of their criticism of Republicans’ failure to know the nitty-gritty details of the bill they’re about to approve.

Politics ain’t pretty, man. Neither is legislating. Someone once compared legislating to sausage-making. It’s messy, a bit grimy and greasy at times and it requires those we elect to legislate to do their homework.

Democrats and Republicans are afflicted with the same malady: laziness that gives way to political expediency.

national news

Still waiting for unification

Has it only been less than a year since Donald J. Trump took the presidential oath of office?

Gosh, it seems like so-o-o-o much longer. Does it to you? No need to answer.

I recall so vividly one of the many promises the then-president elect made during the transition into power. He pledged to “unify” the country ripped apart by one of the most divisive, hateful, spiteful and insult-driven presidential campaigns in history.

How’s he done so far as his first year in office approaches?

Umm, not too well.

His fellow congressional Republicans have sought to govern without any help from congressional Democrats. The president has cheered them on.

The only phrase from the new president’s dark, dismal and desultory inaugural speech mentioned “the American carnage,” and how he intended to stop it “right here and right now.” Has it stopped?

Nope. We’ve seen massacres in Orlando, Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs. How has the president responded to them? By blaming Democrats.

The Charlottesville riot perhaps is the nadir of the president’s plan to “unify” the nation. He talked of “good people” among the white supremacist, Nazis and Klansmen who gathered to protest the taking down of a Confederate memorial.

How many “good people” have you ever met who belonged to the KKK, or offered that stiff-armed Nazi salute? I know the answer to that one.

The conservative media are now leading the chorus for the president to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, whose “Russia thing” investigation is proceeding with all deliberate speed. Is that a unifying component? Hardly.

Let’s sum it up.

The nation is as divided as ever. Maybe more so since, oh, the Civil War or the Vietnam War. The president who vowed to bring us together hasn’t made the grade.

The honeymoon he was supposed to get when he took office vanished the moment he began — on Inauguration Day — offering that dark view of the world’s greatest nation.

Unity? We’re far from it, Mr. President.

national news, political news

Former VPOTUS offers a teachable moment for all pols

Joe Biden has this way of comforting those who are in pain.

The former vice president demonstrated that remarkable skill the other morning on a live TV show I was watching with my wife.

Vice President Biden was visiting the set of “The View,” the all-woman gabfest that features guests to talk about “hot topics” and other matters. One of the co-hosts happens to be Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who lost that presidential election to Biden’s running mate, Barack H. Obama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sa8G-VR13Q

Sen. McCain is fighting glioblastoma, a virulent form of brain cancer. The senator’s daughter began discussing Biden’s recent book in which he talks about the disease, which claimed his son, Beau, in 2015. Meghan started crying. She apologized to the former VP, who then swapped chairs with “View” co-host Sunny Hostin. He grasped Meghan McCain’s hands, offering her comfort as she told him how she thinks of Beau Biden daily while her father wages the fight of his life against cancer.

Biden told her to never give up hope. He urged her to follow her dad’s example of courage in the face of daunting challenge. He also sought to encourage Meghan by telling her of medical advancements that are being made in the fight to quell the disease Sen. McCain is battling.

What’s more, the vice president sought to tell Meghan McCain that her father is the politician who understands that political foes — such as Biden and McCain were during their time together in the Senate — need not be enemies. He told her his son, Beau, admired Sen. McCain’s “courage,” the type he demonstrated while being held captive during the Vietnam War.

Biden also reminded Meghan that her father was always there for those on the other side of the political divide. He spoke of his longstanding friendship with Sen. McCain.

The lesson here is obvious.

Democrats and Republicans in today’s political environment too often demonize each other. By that I mean they question their patriotism, their love of country, their motivation. Joe Biden sought to tell the daughter of one of his best Senate friends that her dad does not operate that way.

It’s a lesson I wish fervently would somehow sink in on both sides of the gaping chasm that separates the political parties operating in Washington — under the Capitol Hill dome and inside the walls of the White House.

national news

Capitol Hill gripped by fear of harassment

It’s come down to this.

Members of Congress — senators and House members — are being harassed and hassled themselves by bogus complaints alleging sexual harassment.

What has become of this scandal? Has it grown to something no one recognizes?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has had to fend off a fake complaint, as has Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

Yes, this issue is real. It has reached scandalous proportions as scores of women have levied credible, legitimate complaints against powerful men in government. Three of them have been forced to resign; others are declaring their intention to bow out after the 2018 midterm election.

Some of these accusations involve some truly hideous conduct.

But there now appears to be some evidence of bogus allegations surfacing.

Let’s be careful — shall we? — as we continue to grapple with this matter.

We have complaints being lodged against none other than the president of the United States. Many of those complaints seem quite credible, in my humble view. The president has called them liars and said their accusations are part of a “fake news” effort to undermine him.

Then we have comments from the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, saying that all complaints “need to be heard.” I agree with her.

Be careful of fear

Then again, let us be take care that we don’t push the sexual harassment panic button at every single complaint. Human beings are quite capable of tricking the rest of us.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “You want to have a welcome environment to report abuse — you don’t want to deter victims. But you’ve got to have enough due process and scrutiny to make sure it’s accurate.”

“I think this environment is pretty crazy right now,” Graham added, and “what happened to Sen. Schumer is a concern to a lot of us.”

Uncategorized

Be true to your commitment on Mueller, Mr. POTUS

I do want to believe the president of the United States.

Donald Trump said today he is not considering whether to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. A reporter asked the president directly today and he answered it directly.

That’s a good thing.

Except …

The president has a habit of changing his mind on a whim. He can turn on a dime, in an instant. He can switch gears, slam his thoughts into reverse and do precisely the opposite of what he had said earlier.

Conservatives are ganging up on Mueller over a couple of prosecutors on his staff who had exchanged emails expressing a distinct bias toward Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump during the 2016 election. Mueller fired them both.

Mueller is leading an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives who — according to intelligence analysts — hacked into our electoral process and meddled in Trump’s election as president.

The attacks against Mueller are mounting. Conservatives believe he’s too cozy with the fired FBI director, James Comey. They also believe he’s too anti-Trump to conduct an impartial and fair investigation into the collusion matter.

Trump calls the probe a “witch hunt” and says there’s “no collusion.” Fine, then let the investigation run its course.

The president is now on record saying he has no plans to fire Mueller. He isn’t considering it — he said.

I need to remind others, though, that politicians quite regularly say they “have no plans” to run for another office, but then do so anyway. The “have no plans” dodge protects them in the moment; it doesn’t address what might happen in the next day, or week, or month.

With the president, we need to be mindful of his ability to change his mind in the next, oh, 30 seconds.

national news

Does the GOP serve the public … or itself?

First it was the Republican-led initiative to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with an unknown alternative.

Americans weren’t having any part of that cluster-flip. The ACA repeal/replace effort fizzled and failed.

Now the GOP leadership in Congress is trying to enact a massive tax cut. How is that plan faring in the world of public opinion? Not much better than the ACA repeal effort.

So now congressional Republicans are poised to send a tax cut to Donald J. Trump’s desk. The president will sign it. It’ll become law before the end of the year. Every Republican in Congress will declare victory.

But is this what Americans really want? Some critical analysis is reporting that middle-class Americans won’t get a permanent tax break, while corporations and gazillionaires will get longterm tax relief. It’s also going to add more than a trillion dollars to the budget deficit over the next decade. Aren’t Republicans supposed to be “deficit hawks”?

Thus, public opinion appears to be lined up against this tax overhaul.

So … why do the men and women in command of the legislative and executive branches of government insist that this tax cut is going to answer all our prayers?

I keep wondering if these political leaders represent the interests of all Americans or just those who have sway over the policies being enacted.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 63

2 Comments

I am going to miss many aspects about living in West Texas.

My friends; the big sky and the fabulous sunrises and sunsets; Palo Duro Canyon; the distinctly different seasons of the year.

I won’t miss one aspect of life on the High Plains: the distance one must travel to get anywhere.

Our 23 years on the High Plains has acclimated my wife and me to this reality. It is that you don’t measure travel in miles; you measure it in the time it takes you to get somewhere. If it’s only an hour’s drive, no sweat. Even a two-hour drive is tolerable. Three hours? Eh, it’s still doable.

It took me a while to get used to that element of West Texas life. But I did. It’s no longer a big deal for either of us — and I’m presuming this of my wife — to “commute” 30 or 40 miles in a morning. Hey, it’s still less than an hour behind the wheel!

We moved to the High Plains from the Golden Triangle, where any destination of note was much closer to home. Ninety minutes to Houston; four hours to New Orleans; five hours to Dallas-Fort Worth; 30 minutes to the beach.

Soon (I hope) we’ll be relocating to points southeast of the High Plains. We’ll be settling somewhere in the Metroplex. Our precise destination is yet to be determined.

I’m not yet sure how long it will take me to re-acclimate to travel in a region where destinations aren’t spread so far apart. I suspect it won’t take long. I figure it’s always easier to fall back on what we once knew than to venture into a strange — and largely unknown — way of life.

If only we could take our friends, the canyon and that gorgeous sky with us.