Monthly Archives: January 2018

entertainment news

Tom Hanks: Man of many IDs

Tom Hanks has become the go-to actor to portray historical — even iconic — figures.

I heard today he’s been cast in the role of Fred “Mister” Rogers in a new biopic that tells the story of how the late Presbyterian minister rose to fame as a children’s storyteller.

It’s clear to me that Hanks has emerged as the preeminent male actor of our time, or perhaps of any time.

Look at the record.

The guy has won two best-actor Oscars. Back to back!

Get a load of this, too: He’s portrayed the late U.S. Rep. Charles Wilson, with whom I became acquainted while covering him in East Texas; Chesley “Sulley” Sullenberger, the “hero of the Hudson River,” the jetliner captain who made that astonishing landing in New York — on the water; the late Ben Bradlee, the famed editor of The Washington Post; Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, the space flight known for the dramatic rescue of the three-man crew after an in-flight explosion on its way to the moon.

I spoke with Rep. Wilson not long after the 9/11 attack. I called him for some perspective on al-Qaeda, given that he worked to supply arms to the mujahadeen in their fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Wilson was damn-near giddy at the news that Tom Hanks had agreed to portray “Good Time Charlie” in the film titled “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

I never met Bradlee and I don’t know Lovell or Sulley.

Still … I give Hanks huge props for landing this opportunity to portray yet another American icon.

I am sure Mister Rogers would applaud this bit of casting.

national news, political news

Who will hug the aisle at the SOTU?

State of the Union speeches always are accompanied by back stories, vignettes that give commentators something on which to, um, comment.

How many ovations will bring both parties to their feet? How long will the president speak? How many programs will he lay at the feet of Congress?

Here’s what I’ll look for tonight: Who will be hugging the aisle when the sergeant at arms announces: Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States?

When the president walks down the aisle toward the podium, he usually shakes hands, gets high-fives, slaps a few members of Congress on the back, gets good wishes and does that silly “finger-point” to someone he recognizes.

During the two most recent presidencies — of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama — one could always depend on seeing certain lawmakers getting TV face time hugging or shaking hands with the incoming president. I think, for instance, of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat.

Members of Congress usually wait for hours prior to the speech to get their preferred place along the aisle. You could depend on seeing Rep. Lee greeting Presidents Bush or Obama as they walked toward the speaker’s podium.

There’s a new man in the Oval Office these days. Donald J. Trump’s the guy who’ll deliver the State of the Union speech.

So … the question: Who will we see leaning over the aisle looking to greet the president, and will one of them be Sheila Jackson Lee, the fierce Democratic partisan?

Let’s get real for just a moment. Democratic members of Congress — along with a few Republicans — have been pretty damn vocal in their criticism of the president; they’ve blasted him for his behavior, his rhetoric and, indeed, his policies.

What’s more, this president has been pretty fierce in his response to his congressional critics.

I believe I’ll look tonight to see evidence of grudges.

national news

Deputy FBI director departure might signal some worry

Andrew McCabe has decided to call it quits at the FBI, where he served as deputy director.

He left earlier than expected, caving under pressure from Donald J. Trump and congressional Republicans who said he was biased against the president. Why? Because his wife is a friend and ally of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

McCabe also stood up for fired FBI director James Comey, who Trump dismissed this past year after Comey declined to pledged total loyalty to the president. And, oh yes, there was that “Russia thing” that still hangs over the Oval Office.

In the midst of all this, Trump reportedly asked McCabe in a private discussion about who he voted for president in 2016. Interesting, if true. It’s also quite dangerous.

I join others who are concerned about what might happen next. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will find someone who is decidedly less independent to serve as deputy director. There well might be a push to squeeze the life out of a probe into whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome.

McCabe’s forced resignation suggests pressure from the White House, from the Oval Office to guide the special counsel’s Russia collusion investigation to a desired outcome.

I believe they would call that “obstruction of justice.”

national news

Trump speech will get graded on style points

We are about a day away from Donald John Trump’s first State of the Union speech and I believe I can anticipate how the media are likely to critique his performance.

You see, the president isn’t very good at reading a speech from a TelePrompter. He prefers to wing it. When he ad libs, he gets, um, a bit carried away. We saw it time and again on the 2016 campaign trail and again after he took his presidential oath.

The State of the Union is a different sort of forum. It traditionally produces a high-minded assessment of the nation’s condition, along with a laundry list of legislation the president wants Congress to enact.

I will be among the millions of Americans who will tune in to watch the president tell us about the “state of our union.” I suspect strongly I’ll disagree with how he likely will proclaim all the success he has achieved in his first year in office. I likely will agree that the state of our union is “strong,” but I won’t buy the notion that the Trump administration deserves all the credit for the nation’s strength and vitality; the president inherited a nation in good condition, no matter how much he tells us about the “disaster” that awaited him.

Let us make no mistake, though, about how the media will assess the president’s State of the Union speech. They will look at his comfort level speaking to the nation from a prepared text. They also will wait for those moments when he veers off script.

The White House has sent signals that Trump plans to take his foot off the pedal just a bit. The flacks tell us the president intends to speak of “unity.”

We’ll see how that goes. I am a skeptic.

Bigly.

State news

Where have you gone, Dr Pepper?

As the late Jimmy Durante might say, “What a revoltin’ development this is.”

Dr Pepper has been bought by Keurig. A longstanding Texas brand, therefore, is moving to Massachusetts.

What does it mean? What is happening to this serious Texas-brand soft drink, dubbed “the national drink of Texas”?

According to Texas Monthly, Dr Pepper will continue to headquarter in Texas, but its main office — where the top of the corporate chain of command operates — will move to the Bay State.

Here is how Texas Monthly reported the change: … As of Monday, a big piece of the Dr Pepper tradition is heading outside of the state: Keurig Green Mountain, the source of the K-Cup fad of the early/mid-2010’s, announced on Monday that they acquired Dr Pepper Snapple for $18.7 billion—which means that, while Dr Pepper’s HQ will likely remain in Texas, the corporate parent will be based out of Massachusetts.

Here is Texas Monthy’s story.

I am not a huge Dr Pepper drinker. One of my sons loves it. If he were to pick his soft drink of choice, it would be the Dr … and I won’t put a period after “Dr” because the brand doesn’t allow it. My wife prefers the diet version of the drink.

We have lived in Texas long enough — 35 years — to appreciate the drink’s impact on the state. We once toured the Dr Pepper museum in Waco, where the beverage was founded in 1885. Indeed, Baylor University has its Dr Pepper Hour each week.

But a Texas institution just won’t seem quite right once the corporate offices move way up yonder … to New England!

As a friend of mine — who happens to be a Baylor grad — noted on social media, them Yankees are likely to put a period after, um, “Dr.”

national news

This gang still can’t shoot straight

Check out the word circled in red ink.

This error goes more or less without any comment, much less a full-blown critique. So I won’t offer one here.

Suffice to say that the White House apparatus — Donald John Trump’s self-described “fine-tuned machine” — needs a healthy helping of lube grease.

This is the official invitation to the president’s State of the “Uniom” speech Tuesday night.

Sad.

local news

Campaigning for city’s brighter future

Every now and then I get responses to my blog posts commenting on Amarillo’s progress from those who look a bit skeptically at what gets my attention.

I will post something hailing the development downtown. I like looking past the highway headaches we experience along Interstates 40 and 27. Then I get the responses from my fellow Panhandle residents who aren’t as supportive of what I see happening.

That’s their call. Just as my blog posts are my call.

I suppose it’s an unwritten policy of High Plains Blogger to offer positive commentary on Amarillo, where my wife and one of my sons and I have have lived for more than two decades.

I want the city to succeed. I have noticed a decidedly different approach from the city’s governing council regarding Amarillo’s growth and the role that municipal government is playing.

The council once operated under a policy of letting private enterprise carry the ball forward. The city took a more hands-off approach to public involvement. I assumed my post as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News in January 1995 and felt a decided slow-down of inertia at City Hall.

That appeared to change with the election of Debra McCartt as the city’s first female mayor. It continued through her time in the mayor’s office and was picked up by her successor, Paul Harpole. This past year, Ginger Nelson took over and seems set on continuing the city’s more proactive approach.

I fully support this form of “good government” and I will continue to use this blog as a forum to express that support.

Some of the more critical observers of Amarillo’s business activity perhaps think of this blog as a forum for a Pollyanna. If that’s the case, well, I would disagree in strong terms.

I’ve been known to toss a brick or two at local political interests when opportunities present themselves. I also have snooped around and found those opportunities hidden in places most folks cannot find.

I won’t assign nefarious motives just for the sake of stirring up trouble. To date, as I’ve watched the city move forward with downtown redevelopment and the myriad other initiatives under way throughout Amarillo, I remain in wholehearted support of what I consider to be a march toward a brighter future.

national news

How might POTUS exit?

Forgive me for getting ahead of myself, but my mind sometimes wanders far a good bit into the future at times.

My mind is teasing me at the moment with this question: How is Donald John Trump going to exit the presidency of the United States?

I keep wondering if he is capable of going out with grace, keeping the tradition long established by a “peaceful” and “seamless” transition of power from one president to the next one.

I won’t predict when that transition will occur. I guess it’s OK to mention five options that await the president:

  • He could get re-elected in 2020 and serve the remainder of his presidency until he must exit, according to the U.S. Constitution.
  • He could be defeated for re-election in 2020.
  • He might decide against seeking a second term.
  • He could be impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted in the Senate after Democrats re-take control of both congressional chambers in the 2018 mid-term election.
  • He could quit before being impeached.

I won’t predict which of those events will occur. In a strange way, though, it seems quite likely to my own mind that no matter how this man exits the presidency, he isn’t going to go away quietly.

Donald Trump just ain’t wired to behave the way those who occupy this exalted office usually do.

Let’s all prepare for continued turbulence.

media news

Memo to CNN: check your anger at the door

Oh, how I hate admitting this, but I feel compelled to do so.

Ari Fleischer — President George W. Bush’s first press secretary — posted a tweet overnight that makes an interesting and quite valid point about CNN’s coverage of all things political.

He said that if you’re an anti-Donald J. Trump (a Democrat) guest, you get all the time in the world to make your case; if you happen to be pro-Trump (a Republican), the CNN anchors will interrupt you constantly. Here’s what he wrote: I’ve been watching CNN’s morning show recently. It seems to have two main topics. 1) What did Trump/GOP do wrong? 2) How bad is the collusion story for Donald Trump. If you’re a Democrat guest , you’re free to speak. If you’re a Republican, you’ll always be interrupted.

I admit to watching it occur in the moment myself. And, oh yes, it annoys me, too.

Let me be clear about something else as well. Fleischer made no mention of the way Fox News on-air personalities treat their pro- and anti-Trump guests. Given that I rarely watch Fox, I am only able to presume that they flip the CNN example on its head, treating the Republicans with fairness and the Democrats with the same level of disdain that CNN shows toward the pro-Trumpers.

I want to hold up an example of how a broadcast or cable news network ought to handle these on-air confrontations: I present ABC News’ “This Week.”

That program, which airs Sunday morning, had former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr on board this past weekend explaining what might drive the investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged involvement with Russian 2016 election hackers. He appeared with ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams. Starr — who ran the investigation that led to President Clinton’s impeachment — could be construed as someone favorable to the current president. Abrams has revealed a more critical bias toward the president.

The two men made their points without interruption. The moderator, Martha Raddatz, didn’t barge in on either man’s time. She let them argue their points to the viewers — and occasionally with each other.

This is the kind of give-and-take we rarely see on CNN — the cable network that calls itself the “leader” in cable news presentation.

I am a fairly regular CNN viewer. As one who takes the presentation of news seriously, I want to echo Ari Fleischer’s assessment of the perception that CNN creates, which is that it does not present the news fairly and without bias.

And just think: This critique comes from someone who is inclined to agree with the point of view expressed by CNN’s talking heads.

My plea is simple. Check your bias at the door, CNN “news” staff, and don’t let your anxiety over the state of play in politics and public policy get the better of you.

environmental news

Ice caps are melting, Mr. President! Really, they are!

Donald J. Trump now is expressing an opinion that runs counter to scientific consensus.

The president has declared polar ice caps are at “record levels.” He is trying to buttress his bogus assertion that climate change is a “hoax” cooked up by Chinese conspiracy theorists intent on using the phenomenon as a way to undermine the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

But, but, but …

The evidence suggests something else. The ice caps are diminishing. They are endangering wildlife, such as polar bears that rely on the ice caps for their hunting of prey, such as seals and walruses.

The president isn’t buying it. Has he consulted with anyone? Does he ever consult with anyone on anything? I think we know the answer to that question.

According to The Hill: “I mean, look, it used to not be climate change. It used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place,” Trump said.

Indeed, spoken like a man with deep scientific knowledge.

I am going to rely on the scientific community and, oh yes, the pictures that NASA is taking from outer space showing precisely what is happening to the world’s Arctic and Antarctic ice caps.

They are shrinking, Mr. President. The pictures don’t lie … unlike a prominent politician who is known to prevaricate with abandon.