Monthly Archives: March 2018

State news

Disappointed in GOP primary for land commissioner

I’ve already told you about my satisfaction in the Republican Party primary election finish for two key races for the Texas Legislature: State Sen. Kel Seliger and state Rep. Four Price, both of Amarillo, beat back challenges to win their party’s nomination.

In Seliger’s case, he has a token foe this fall, so he’s virtually assured of his re-election.

I suffered through my share of GOP disappointments, to be sure.

One of them involved the race for Texas land commissioner. I cast my ballot for former Land Commissioner Jerry “The Gun Guy” Patterson, who sought to win his old job back from the incumbent, George P. Bush.

Patterson had grown weary of Bush’s scaling back of General Land Office functions, notably its administering of The Alamo in San Antonio. Bush keeps harping on how “conservative” he has been in running the GLO.

I’ve long appreciated Patterson on a couple of levels.

He had a demonstrated commitment to veterans issues. The GLO administers the state’s veterans home loan program and Patterson — a former Marine Corps pilot — made the issue his own as land commissioner.

I also appreciated his self-deprecating humor, how he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Patterson once joked about how he finished “in the top 75 percent of my class at Texas A&M,” and how he managed to earn is “four-year degree in six years.”

I get that these personal traits don’t necessarily translate to public policy, but I do find them endearing.

Patterson ran for land commissioner after a Texas Senate career distinguished by his authoring the state’s concealed handgun carry bill. I opposed that legislation when he introduced in the mid-1990s; although I don’t endorse it now, I have come to accept it as the law of the state.

Bush is likely to be re-elected this fall. He’ll continue to scale back the GLO’s functions, declaring his actions to be those of a dedicated conservative. Patterson sought to make the case that the Land Office needs to step up to take care of state treasures, such as The Alamo.

He didn’t make the case to enough Republican Party primary voters.

That’s too bad.

media news

Media don’t operate in a vacuum

I laugh when I hear Donald Trump’s supporters say the following: The media keep reporting on issues that don’t matter to the public.

How can I say it more clearly than this: They are wrong!

A Trumpkin said on CNN this afternoon that the media keep reporting on the Russia investigation because only the reporters, pundits and editors are interested in this issue. Rank-and-file Americans, he said, are more interested in other issues, such as the economy, global affairs, war and peace … those kinds of things.

Hold the phone, young man!

The media do not operate in a vacuum. The broadcast, cable and print media perform at the behest of their listeners, viewers and readers. The media do not march off to some cadence that only they hear.

I will put it another way: The media are for-profit institutions and organizations. They have shareholders, board members and corporate executives who are in the business of making money. Thus, they demand that their media representatives give the public what it wants. To that end, the media perform a public service and from my vantage point, the public is demanding accountability.

The media’s job is to report to the public what it demands.

When I hear these canards from Trump supporters that the media are off on some sort of “conspiracy” to topple the president, all I can do is shake my head in amazement.

I worked in print media full time for nearly 37 years. During that time I received my share of accusations of conspiracy to slant coverage or to undermine those with certain points of view. My answer usually fell along this line: We don’t have the time in my line of work to spend concocting conspiracies. It’s all we can do to get the paper out the back door every single day.

The same tenet holds true for broadcast media.

The media are doing their job. They are reporting the news the public wants to hear. When the day arrives that the public doesn’t want to know about the “Russia thing,” it will convey that preference to the media execs who will respond accordingly.

national news

Oh, that POTUS is such a comedian

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has mounted a curious defense of Donald Trump’s penchant for profane name-calling.

He said the president “likes making funny names.”

Hey, Trump’s latest funny-name tirade this week included these two knee-slappers. He referred to “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd a “sleeping son of a bitch.” Oh, and then — at the same political rally in Pennsylvania — he described Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters as a “low-IQ individual.”

I cannot stop laughing. The president just cracks me up. What a card, a comedian. He needs to take his act on the road. Oh, wait! That’s what he did when he hurled those insults at (a) a prominent broadcast journalist and (b) a leader of the congressional Democratic caucus.

Mnuchin’s defense of Trump came, interestingly, on “Meet the Press,” the program Todd has moderated for the past several years. I didn’t watch it in real time. I’m quite sure that Todd didn’t crack up at Mnuchin’s defense of the president. Oh, no. Todd is too much of a pro to do something so stupid.

As Politico reports: “I’ve been with the president and at campaigns. You know, he likes to put names on people,” the Treasury secretary said. “He did that through the entire presidential election, including all of the Republicans that he beat. … These are campaign rally issues.” 

That is supposed to excuse the kind of hideous language that Trump spews? Give me a break.

“Campaign rally issues” often produce free-form rhetoric. However, we are talking here about the president of the United States of America. Isn’t this individual supposed to elevate the quality of political discourse?

International news

‘I, alone’ appears to be more than a throw-away line

Donald John Trump’s surprise announcement of a planned meeting with Kim Jong Un underscores arguably the single deepest flaw in this president’s administration.

The president said he would surround himself with the “best people” to “make America great again.”

And during the 2016 Republican National Convention he stood at the lecturn and bellowed that “I, alone” can repair the things that ail this nation.

Fast-forward to this past week. The president accepted an invitation to meet with the North Korean dictator. Who did he inform of his decision? Was it his national security team? The vice president? The, um, secretary of state? None of the above.

He freelanced this one. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the nation’s top diplomat and the man who would need to know about such a momentous event before it is announced, was kept in the dark.

Donald Trump plans to meet with Kim no later than May. They’re supposed to talk about nuclear weapons and the North Koreans’ desire to become a bona fide nuclear power. The president is having none of it.

Where, though, is the pre-meeting preparation? How is this political novice — I refer to Trump — going to approach this event? Will he listen to a single word from the likes of Tillerson, or national security adviser H.R. McMaster? How about Vice President Mike Pence, who served in Congress before being elected Indiana governor?

My definition of “best people” no doubt differs from Trump’s use of the term. However, the president has assembled a team and has charged them with implementing policies that originate in the Oval Office.

It all begs the question, at least in my mind: Will the president let the “best people” do the things they must do or will be continue to act alone, pretending to be the world’s most indispensable human being?

local news

Students face steep hill on their upcoming march

I am delighted in the extreme to hear about plans for Texas Panhandle students to take part in a national “March For Our Lives” event.

As I understand it, Caprock High School students are leading the organizational effort. They hope to be joined by students from throughout the Panhandle on March 24. They’ll gather at Ellwood Park and will march to the Potter County Courthouse.

They’ll stand on the courthouse grounds and read names of shooting victims and will demand action from our political leaders to do something about the scourge of school-related gun violence.

They have been spurred to hit the streets by the Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The slaughter has produced some student superstars who have emerged as spokespeople for this young people’s crusade against gun violence.

However …

Let’s not sugarcoat the difficulty facing the Panhandle marching delegation. They won’t exactly be preaching to a choir with a history or tradition of heeding calls to enact legislative remedies to curbing gun violence.

Amarillo is represented in the U.S. House by Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who has been virtually mute on the issue of gun violence. He doesn’t speak with any passion about how Congress can act. Thornberry recently spoke about considering what he called “common sense” measures … whatever the hell that means.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the state’s senior senator, is pitching legislation that would streamline data collection about military personnel; Cornyn’s bill stems from the Sutherland Springs church massacre in 2017. He has lined up behind stricter background checks. His Senate colleague, Ted Cruz, hasn’t signed on.

The March For Our Lives is intended to let lawmakers know that young Americans who aren’t yet of age to vote will become of age soon. These students say they intend to exercise their vote to support candidates who want to become more proactive on this gun violence crisis.

The majority of the Texas congressional delegation so far isn’t lining up as a receptive audience for the concerns that these students are conveying. I am certain that students who march in two weeks in communities represented by more sympathetic politicians will have a direct impact.

As for what the students here get … they have a steep hill to climb. They need to shout it loudly and clearly what they intend to do once they arrive at the Potter County Courthouse grounds.

media news, national news, political news

Trump continues his unpresidential presidency

Can the president of the United States stoop even lower? Is it possible for Donald Trump to go beyond the pale in speaking with vile disregard for other human beings?

Yes and yes.

Trump today decided to take on “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, calling him a “sleeping son of a bitch” at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

He went after the media yet again for its coverage of a planned meeting between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He impaled several cable and broadcast networks, saving praise — of course! — for the Fox News Channel.

Yes, the president has “treated” the nation yet again to a demonstration of how little regard he has for the office he occupies.

Calling a respected news anchor a “sleeping SOB”? Is this clown — and I’m talking about Trump — for real?

Sadly, the answer is yes. He’s very much for real.

Oh, but he’s “telling it like it is.”

Despicable.

legal news, national news

AG defends his decision to recuse himself

Hell has this habit of freezing over, enabling me to say something positive about one of Donald Trump’s key Cabinet officers.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fielded a direct question the other day that required him to provide a direct answer. He answered it correctly, to his great credit.

The questioner asked him whether he regretted recusing himself from the investigation into whether the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russians who meddled in our electoral  process.

Sessions was unequivocal in his answer. Sessions had to pull out of the investigation, he said, because of his key role in the Trump presidential campaign and then the transition into the Trump presidency.

There could be no way for the AG to conduct an impartial investigation into alleged collusion with the Russians, Sessions said, because he was far too close to the situation. He would be investigating potentially himself.

So, he withdrew from the Russia probe. He handed the matter over to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who then selected Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel in this ongoing probe.

I have praised Sessions’s decision from the get-go. It demonstrated an understanding of the ethics of the law and the AG’s appreciation of the appearance of conflict of interest.

The AG’s decision, not surprisingly, has angered the president, who has said that had he known Sessions would back out of the “Russia thing,” he would have nominated someone else to the post. Trump and Sessions, by many accounts, have at best a frosty relationship to this day.

The way I see it, it’s because Sessions made the correct decision to back away from an investigation that is being handled by one of the most meticulous lawyers anyone can find.

As much as I disapprove of Sessions as attorney general in the first place, I merely think it’s appropriate to offer a good word when he makes the right decision and then stands foursquare behind it.

Sports news

Tiger appears to be back … all the way

I know this sounds snobbish of me, but I want Tiger Woods to win the tournament he is playing in this week.

It’s something called the Valspar Championship. He is a shot behind a young man from Canada named Corey Conners.

Snobbishness? Well, my desire to see Tiger win is to see some excitement generated in professional golf. Conners hasn’t won yet on the pro golf tour. His day will come. I just don’t want it to come this weekend.

You know how I feel about Tiger Woods. He turned out to be a dirt bag of a husband. He cheated repeatedly on his wife, a former Miss Sweden for criminy sakes! She caught him cheating, kicked him out of their mansion and Woods’s career nosedived not long after that.

He’s had some injury, multiple surgeries, a couple of aborted comebacks.

Woods does play with a certain panache. He is so damn fun to watch on TV. I noted in an earlier blog post that he might be “bigger than the game,” although he surely wouldn’t ever say as much out loud.

Woods will be paired with young Corey Conners on Sunday. They’ll get to go head to head. If Corey holds up under the pressure and fends off the greatest golfer of his age, then he well could launch himself into a potentially great career in professional golf.

If Woods’s latest comeback produces his first win in five years, that will make the Earth shake under golf’s feet.

national news

Biden in ’20? Yes, but … why ?

Joseph R. Biden’s possible presidential candidacy in 2020 fills me with equal parts hope and dread.

Actually, the dread part might be a bit greater than the hope.

The former vice president reportedly is thinking hard about running for president in 2020. I presume he wants to challenge Donald John Trump Sr., who’s already formed a re-election campaign committee and has been speaking at political rallies almost from the first day of his presidency.

Biden is being coy, naturally. He says he is concentrating first in this year’s mid-term election that he hopes will elect more Democrats to public office.

Let me stipulate two points about hope and dread.

The Hope: I have admired Biden for decades, dating back to the horrific personal tragedy he endured in 1972 when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate. His wife and daughter died in a car accident shortly after the election that year and Biden wrestled with whether he wanted to become a senator.

His friends counseled him to serve. He took their advice and served in the Senate from 1973 until he was tapped by fellow Sen. Barack Obama to run with him on the 2008 Democratic ticket; Obama and Biden won that contest and Biden became a valuable member of the Obama administration.

Biden’s Senate career hit its share of bumps along the way. He was prone to talking too much. He got ensnared in a copycat scandal in which he lifted remarks from a British politician and used them as his own in telling his life story; that embarrassment cost him dearly and he had to pull out of his first run for president in 1987.

Then there was the time during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Biden had five minutes to ask a question, but he spent damn near all of it on a soliloquy about why he opposed Alito. Sheesh!

But the ex-VP is a patriot who loves this country and has given much in service to it. He might want one more tour of public service duty.

The Dread: As much as I admire Biden, I still believe Democrats need to reach out to the back bench to find a nominee to challenge Trump. I believe 2020 will provide an opportunity to find someone who is on no one’s political radar at the moment.

Barack Obama came out of nowhere in 2008. So did Jimmy Carter in 1976. I’m not saying Democrats should nominate another Obama or Carter, but rather they should find someone who is as unknown as they both were to the American public.

There’s also the issue of age. Vice President Biden would be the oldest man ever elected president were he to win in 2020. He’s already on record saying he would serve a single term before bowing out — which would make him a lame-duck the minute he took his hand off the Bible at his swearing in.

I am reminded of something a late Clackamas County (Ore.) sheriff once told me after he took office when his predecessor resigned. Bill Brooks announced immediately he would run for election. “If I don’t run I become a lame duck,” Brooks said. “Lame ducks get bulldozed and I don’t bulldoze worth a s**t.”

A 78-year-old President Biden would get bulldozed, too.

Would I still support a Biden candidacy over Donald Trump?

Duh! What in the world do you think?

local news, State news

Now the governor calls for GOP ‘unity’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to recover from some of the political wounds he suffered this week in the state’s Republican Party primary.

You see, the governor took a most unusual step in endorsing three challengers to Republican legislative incumbents. It’s highly strange for politicians to take sides within their own party. Abbott sought to get rid of three legislators who oppose many of his policies.

Oops! It didn’t work … mostly. State Reps. Sarah Davis and Lyle Larson won their primary races. Rep. Wayne Faircloth lost his primary contest.

So now the governor wants the party to “unify” behind its slate of candidates running against Democrats this fall.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “Now that the primary’s over, I think it’s very important that the Republican Party come together as one and work together all the way through the November to make sure that we win the elections in November,” Abbott said.

We live in politically contentious times. The Republican Party is being redefined at the very top of the food chain, by the president of the United States. Donald Trump has imposed protectionist trade tariffs that run totally counter to traditional GOP orthodoxy.

That tumult has splashed over state politics as well. Consider the intraparty battles that occurred throughout Texas during this primary season. Popular incumbents received GOP primary challenges in all corners of the state, including in rock-solid Republican Texas Panhandle legislative districts.

This tells me that the “unity” that Gov. Abbott seeks might be a bit more difficult to obtain that it might be in a “normal political climate.”

Ain’t nothing “normal” about what we’re watching transpire within this once-great political party.