Monthly Archives: March 2018

national news

This POTUS is totally untrustworthy … period!

White House chief of staff John Kelly sought to tamp down concerns among his colleagues by telling them there are no more staff changes on the horizon.

How does this man know this? I am going to presume — at my own risk, of course — that Donald J. Trump has told him so.

Kelly then relayed what might be assurances from the president that everyone in the White House can settle down now. Relax. Go about doing their jobs. No worries about their futures or their bosses’ futures.

Except for this: How does anyone trust a single word, let alone sentence, that flies out of Donald Trump’s mouth?

Trump has demonstrated a penchant for unpredictability. Doesn’t he brag about it, along with his sexual prowess and how smart he is? Doesn’t he say that unpredictability enhances his effectiveness as president of the United States?

So, with all that established, does it make any sense at all to take a single thing this guy says? How does one take his utterances at face value? How does one trust someone who lies with absolutely no concern over its consequences?

It might be that Kelly is trying to put as positive a face as he can on the chaos that has erupted yet again inside the West Wing. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s firing came without warning to Tillerson — or anyone else, for that matter. Trump told Tillerson the way he told the rest of the world: via Twitter. Classy, yes? Umm. No!

So now we hear from the White House chief of staff that there are no more firings upcoming.

Let’s all wait until, oh, the sun comes up in the morning.

Tomorrow’s a new day. A new set of crises awaits a stir-crazy nation. That’s how the president likes to operate. Or so he says.

local news

Yes, on more red-light cameras!

You go, Amarillo City Council. Go for it! Install more red-light cameras in the ongoing effort to deter motorists from endangering other motorists and pedestrians.

The council is considering whether to install more cameras that traffic engineers have determine to be hazardous. They are places where motorists choose to disobey stop lights. They either run through them while they’re en route, or … they take off from a dead stop and just blaze on through.

Given that police cannot witness every traffic violation as it occurs, the city decided to deploy technology to assist the police department in its effort to make our streets safer for motorists and pedestrians.

I know that the critics of this program are going to gripe about potential expansion of the red-light camera initiative. Some soreheads keep bitching that its sole intent is generate revenue for the city.

To them I would like to speak once again about what state law mandates regarding these cameras. Please read these next few words slowly, let them sink in:

The revenue is dedicated to traffic improvements.

State legislators have been somewhat reluctant over the years to give cities the authority to install these cameras. Once they did, they sought to ensure that any revenue they generate is set aside specifically to improve traffic infrastructure.

Here’s a bit of cheer: The city is considering removal of lights at some locations, such as at Coulter and Elmhurst. According to the Amarillo Globe-News, accidents at that intersection have decreased significantly.

As City Manager Jared Miller told the Globe-News: “When we first put in Elmhurst as a location, the accidents there warranted installing a traffic safety camera,” … Miller said. “Now, it is not worth it. It has accomplished its objective. This is a good example of a location that has had the desired effect. The purpose is not to generate revenue, but improve safety at intersections in the city.”

What in the world of safe driving and driver awareness is wrong with that?

local news, national news, political news

Today’s students channeling their grandparents

I am hearing some talk in recent days about the nature of the student-led protests that are developing across the nation in reaction to the spasm of gun violence in our public schools.

It has something to do with an earlier era of protest that got enough people’s attention to hasten the end of a costly and divisive war.

Many observers equate the post-Parkland, Fla., school massacre response to what transpired in the 1960s and early 1970s, when thousands of Americans protested the Vietnam War.

They hope this protest has the staying power of that earlier time, when Grandma and Grandpa were much younger and took on the power structure that continued sending young Americans to die on battlefields halfway around the world.

Young Americans are dying today, too. The difference is that they are dying in classrooms here at home.

I wasn’t among the young folks who marched in the street, carrying a sign, chanting slogans … that kind of thing. I wasn’t wired that way. Indeed, I took part for a time in that war, heading off to Vietnam in the spring of 1969 to serve in the Army.

Upon my return and later my separation from the Army in the summer of 1970, I was filled with plenty of doubt about that war and whether its mission was worth continuing. The Vietnam War did awaken my political awareness, although I put it to use in ways that didn’t require me to stand on street corners yelling my displeasure at U.S. foreign policy.

The Parkland slaughter does seem to have awakened a new generation as well. Students plan to “March For Our Lives” on March 24. In Amarillo — a community not really known as a political hotbed for protest — that event will begin at Ellwood Park, where students and their elders will gather to march to the Potter County Courthouse.

Should this protest shred the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right of Americans to “keep and bear arms”? No. Not in the least. Surely there must be some legislative remedy that preserves the amendment, but which makes it more difficult for nut cases to obtain firearms.

The young people who are on the “front lines” of this struggle are seeking to have their voices heard. Decades ago, another generation of young people were thrust onto the front lines to fight another war. Their voices were heard eventually. They brought change then. Their descendants can bring it once more.

local news, State news

New state anti-texting law: no apparent deterrent

A friend posed a question on social media that needs an answer and a brief rant from yours truly. She asked whether anyone else “looks in their rear view mirror” when they are stopped to see if the person behind them is texting while driving a motor vehicle.

I answered “yes,” although I should have been a good bit more emphatic about it.

Texas legislators in 2017 finally approved a statewide ban on the use of hand held communications devices while driving motor vehicles. Amarillo already had an ordinance on the books, along with several other cities throughout the state.

To their credit, our local lawmakers backed the ban. It went to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and he signed it, reversing the position taken by his immediate predecessor, Rick Perry, who vetoed a nearly identical bill in 2011; Gov. Perry offered one of the most idiotic reasons ever recorded for his veto, calling it a form of “government intrusion.”

So, then, are laws against speeding and drunk driving … if you follow Perry’s nonsensical “rationale.” Texting while driving is every bit as dangerous as swilling alcohol or speeding.

My rant follows this track. Since the enactment of the law, I do not sense a serious decline in the incidents of texting while driving. I see motorists constantly doing that very form of dual-tasking.

I curse them, often out loud and in a bellicose voice.

I haven’t traveled out of state in a while, so I cannot confirm this, but the last time my wife and I went beyond the state line I didn’t see any signage on the return trip advising motorists that texting while driving — or using hand held cell phones while driving — was against state law.

Not that such a warning necessarily will deter motorists from breaking the law, but … you get my drift.

There. Rant over.

I’ll now refer to a bumper sticker that once adorned a car we used to own — but which was destroyed in 2012 by a driver who rear-ended my wife while she well might have been texting while driving. The cops never revealed it to us.

Get off the phone and drive!

International news

What? A new national security adviser, too?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is gone. Fired! Canned! Kaput!

Now it’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster, the active-duty Army lieutenant general, who’s reportedly out. He, too, will be booted, according to multiple media reports.

In the span of one week — that’s just seven days — Donald Trump reportedly has dismantled two key components of his national security/foreign policy team.

Oh, and the timing of all this madness? Yep, the president is supposedly prepping for a summit with “Little Rocket Man,” the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

McMaster is the second national security adviser to work for Trump in the past 14 months. The first one, Michael Flynn, lasted all of 24 days before he got the boot.

And through all of this, Donald Trump would have us believe that all is well, all is good, all is working just as it is supposed to work within the White House.

I, um, think not.

Chaos is king in the West Wing.

national news

One more time: Tax returns, Mr. President

Special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed documents from the Trump Organization. He is looking for information relating to the president’s business dealings in Russia and whether there might be some link between those matters and the president’s reluctance to acknowledge Russian meddling in our electoral process.

Wow! Yes? Donald Trump has called that a “red line” that might produce some serious retaliation from the president against Mueller.

Hey now! I have a thought. Do you remember those Trump tax returns? The returns the president hasn’t revealed to the public, defying 40 years of political custom from presidential nominees of both parties? Trump has clung to a lame excuse about an “audit.” The Internal Revenue Service, which hasn’t yet commented on whether it is actually auditing Trump’s returns, has said an audit doesn’t preclude the returns’ release to the public.

Trump should have released them long ago. Mueller’s probe now seems to be closing in on those returns. Gosh, might he subpoena those returns as part of his own investigation?

Trump and his allies keep saying that “no one” is interested in those returns. I disagree. Strongly, in fact. I am not “no one.” Neither are the millions of Americans who didn’t vote for Trump. Yes, there are more of us than those who voted for the president in 2016.

The tax returns are back. On the front burner, where they belong.

media news, national news

No shortage of commentary grist

I can peg the day when it all began.

It was a Tuesday. Sept. 11, 2001. A colleague popped his head into my office that morning and asked, “Did you hear? Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Centers.” I asked, “Was the weather bad?” He said no; the weather was beautiful. “What kind of moron would do that?” I asked. I turned on the TV — and then watched the second jetliner crash into the other WTC tower.

The horror began.

It hasn’t let up. That was the day that as an opinion journalist — an editor and an editorial writer — that I’ve never had to struggle to find topics on which to comment.

More than one person has asked me about how I am able to write so frequently on varying subjects. I don’t really have a good answer. The only thing I can trace it to occurred on 9/11.

That singular event granted editorial writers such as yours truly with a sort of professional “dream scenario.”

It goes like this: My task for many years after that horrifying event was to decide which subjects I could set aside for another day. The opposite of that option is struggling to find subjects to write about to fill a gaping space on the editorial page.

Those opportunities seem — mysteriously, I should add — to have mushroomed into many other facets of commentary. In the weeks and immediately after 9/11, as the United States prepared to retaliate and as we searched our national soul for what happened on that terrible day, we were consumed by the act and our national response to it.

I stayed at my daily print journalism post for another 11 years after that day. Then my career at the Amarillo Globe-News ended. I have continued my passion for commentary damn near daily since I walked away from a rewarding and moderately successful career.

And in this strange and unexplainable way, I have maintained the pace that was set on 9/11. A day does not arrive that fails to produce something on which to comment. Yes, this blog has spent a lot of energy commenting on matters relating to the presidency of Donald Trump. I am able to look elsewhere, too.

Such as right now, commenting on the environment that produces such a rich harvest of topics on which to pontificate.

It’s great to be alive in this day and time! Yes?

national news

More heads to roll at White House?

1 Comment

Donald J. Trump once pledged that he would surround himself with the “best people.”

I always presumed the president meant he would do so at the outset. That he would be have his A-Team suited up and ready to “make America great again” from Day One of the Trump administration.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

The national security adviser was gone after 24 days; the president has burned through four communications directors in a little more than a year; Trump fired the FBI director; the health and human services secretary quit; so did the press secretary; senior policy adviser Stephen Bannon got the boot; so did the White House chief of staff; his chief economics adviser quit; the secretary of state got canned.

Have I missed anyone? Probably. I can’t keep up.

The second national security adviser is considered on the bubble. Same for the attorney general. Hey, the second chief of staff might be out, too. I have read something about the education secretary possibly getting the boot, along with the housing and veterans affairs secretaries.

And then the president reminded us this week that he’s now “very close” to fielding his real A-Team, that he actually relishes conflict among the ranks of advisers.

Do you believe Trump invites dissent? That he wants people to disagree with him? That he takes those disagreements under advisement and then renders thoughtful decisions?

Hah! Neither do I.

I cannot fathom how anyone worth a damn would want to work in this environment. The president has hired precious few top-flight individuals. The defense secretary is a top-drawer guy. I once had high hopes that his second chief of staff would rise to the occasion. I believe the new FBI director is a serious player, too.

So, what’s it going to be? Are we going to get a government that actually functions or will it continue to stumble along, directionless and without form?

It has been said that Trump’s political instincts served him well while he campaigned for the presidency, but that he flushed them away when he began to govern.

This man does not know what he is doing.

environmental news, local news

Stay safe, firefighters … and thank you

I’ve already posted a recent blog item that talks a bit about the value of prayer as the Texas Panhandle battles through this latest punishing drought.

I feel the need now to offer a word of support, thanks and good wishes for some men and women, many of whom are volunteering their time to protect us from raging flames.

We’re under an extreme fire alert today and likely for the next couple of days — at least — because of high winds and the intense drought.

My wife and I can see plumes of smoke to our north and west at this very moment. They are fires that have erupted in this hideous wind storm. But dozens — maybe hundreds — of firefighters have donned their gear and have taken on the flames.

You know — if you read this blog regularly — about my admiration for emergency responders. Police, firefighters and medical personnel are at the top of my list of heroic individuals who — and I believe this firmly — do not get enough demonstrations of love and respect from those of us they protect.

Here’s something else to ponder: Many of those firefighters and emergency medical personnel are volunteers. They have day jobs for which they get paid so they can put beans on the table. When the fire alarms go off in their rural communities, they rush into action.

This by no means diminishes the value we should place on the professional responders who answer the call as well. They, too, are among the few of us who when danger erupts run toward it, not away from it.

Many of them are hard at work as I write these few words. My wife, puppy and I are comfortable in our home on wheels, the RV that is parked at a campground near Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.

For that I am thankful and grateful for the men and women who are doing their damndest to keep us all safe from the flames.

local news, national news

Texas students take a break from protests

Thousands of U.S. students walked out of class today to show their anger and anxiety over gun violence in our nation’s schools.

Oh, but Texas students largely were left out of that protest. They are on spring break this week. So, it follows that there were no classes out of which they could walk to protest gun violence.

The protests continue to build across the land in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 students and staff members dead; a young man is accused of their murders and faces the possibility of a death sentence if he is convicted of this hideous crime.

Lawmakers keep choking on efforts to enact stricter laws regulating the sale and purchase of guns, the fate of assault weapons. They are hung up on arguing whether to arm teachers, giving them a chance to “neutralize” shooters who open fire.

It’s too bad Texas students are on spring break this week. Oh, but let’s not lament their absence today.

On March 24, Texans are going to join other young Americans on a “March For Our Lives” to continue their protests in search of gun violence remedies.

They’re going to march in communities across the nation, including in Amarillo. Students in Amarillo will gather at Ellwood Park and march through downtown, ending up at the Potter County Courthouse.

These protests — instigated and organized by young people whose brethren have been in the line of fire — are important for a couple of key reasons.

They are putting intense and growing pressure on lawmakers who have the authority to act on behalf of those who are making these demands.

They also are sending an important message, which is that they are either old enough to vote now or will be soon; moreover, they say they intend to hold lawmakers accountable for their action — or their inaction.