Monthly Archives: March 2018

Sports news

Still enjoy waiting for baseball to begin

I don’t follow big-league baseball with nearly the fervor I did when I was a kid.

Free agency managed to wreck it for me in the late 1960s, allowing big leaguers to sell their talents to the highest bidder. Players have switched teams, causing some upset to those of us who long associated players with teams.

Mickey Mantle: New York Yankees; Ted Williams: Boston Red Sox; Stan Musial: St. Louis Cardinals.

Sure, some post-free agency players stayed with the same teams throughout their careers: Tony Gwynn: San Diego Padres; Cal Ripken: Baltimore Orioles; George Brett: Kansas City Royals.

All six of those guys are first-ballot Hall of Famers.

OK, now that I’ve stipulated that I don’t follow Major League Baseball the way I used to follow it, I remain anxious as we get ready for the first pitch to be tossed out. I still like old-fashioned hardball. It remains in my mind and heart the National Pastime.

I don’t await the start of pro basketball or pro football with this kind of anticipation. Pro hockey? Umm. Not even close.

Baseball is still a bit different for me.

I follow a couple of players more than the rest of ’em. By fave at the moment plays for the Los Angeles Angels: Albert Pujols, who’ll enter the Hall of Fame on the first ballot when his time comes up. Pujols is set to get his 3,000th hit this season. He’ll get his share of home runs to add to his ninth-best career total of 614. My hope is that he can put together at least one more career year to match the seasons he piled up in St. Louis before he decided to shop his skills around before he ended up in LA.

So, with that I’ll await the 2018 MLB season with some enthusiasm. I’m no longer a kid. Baseball no longer is quite the same as it was in those days.

They still play good hardball and, brother, they get paid lots of money to play a kid’s game.

national news

Let’s play the ‘What if … ?’ game

I like playing this game on occasion. I call it the game of “What If … ?” I usually wonder “What If … ?” another president had done any of the things that have been alleged against Donald John Trump Sr., let alone the things he’s already admitted to doing.

This porn star story is just the latest example.

CNN talking head Van Jones noted the other day that President Barack Obama would be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — where the United States detains terror suspects — if he had done the things alleged to have been done by the current president.

The more I think about it, the truer it sounds.

It all falls back on the question I keep asking in private as well as out loud; I’ve posed it on this blog.

How in the world does the president’s support base — which includes the evangelical Christian community — tolerate this stuff? He is alleged to have taken a tumble with a porn star a year into his third marriage and just after the birth of his youngest child. The faithful among Trump’s supporters have remains silent. We’re hearing nothing but crickets, man! They give him a pass.

If any of this had happened regarding, say, President Obama, there would be demonstrations in front of the White House, calls for the president’s impeachment and — as Jones suggested — armed security storming into the White House to haul the president off in handcuffs and shackles.

OK, I exaggerate. You get the point.

As Jones said on CNN: “If Barack Obama had done just half of what Trump did last week, he would have been impeached. He’d be in Guantanamo,” Van said, a former adviser to Obama. “They’d have said ‘Listen, something’s wrong with this guy. He’s no longer here. Biden’s the president … we’re moving on.’” 

Trump said he’d shake things up when he got elected president. Boy, howdy! Has he ever. He’s shaken up our national sense of outrage.

national news, political news

Mueller’s probe might find new paths to travel

Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President and Mrs. Clinton began with a look into the first couple’s real estate dealings.

Then it morphed into something quite different. A blue dress emerged with some DNA on it, linking it to a relationship between the president and a young White House intern.

Starr, a special prosecutor, summoned the president before a grand jury and asked him about the relationship. President Clinton didn’t tell the truth.

Boom! We had an impeachment!

Two decades later, special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — which began as an investigation into possible collusion with Russians who hacked into our 2016 presidential election — might be heading down a similar path.

Donald Trump allegedly had an affair with a porn queen in 2006. He has denied it. The president’s personal lawyer, Michel Cohen, has acknowledged writing a $130,000 check to keep the porn queen quiet about an affair — again, that the president says didn’t happen.

So, here comes the latest Big Question: Where did the money come from to pay the porn actress? Cohen says he paid it out of his personal account.

Meanwhile, you and I know that Mueller’s antennae have been alerted. The special counsel/former FBI director is a meticulous lawyer. There just be be some dots connect between the Russian probe and this seedy, crappy, tawdry affair.

Looking back on the Starr investigation, I am perplexed at how the special prosecutor connected the dots between real estate and a tawdry relationship between the president and a much younger woman. But he did.

Might history be repeating itself?

business news, local news

Eight years on, it’s still pretty — and still empty

Randall County Judge Ernie Houdashell can claim many successes during his years presiding over the county’s Commissioners Court.

For instance, the sheriff’s department has built a complex on South Georgia Street; the county just recently opened its new courthouse annex on Western Street in southwest Amarillo.

Oh, and the county was able to spruce up the 1909 Courthouse building on the Square in Canyon.

I found a High Plains Blogger post from March 2009 that commented on the old courthouse. I noted that the outside looks good. The inside, well, is unusable. It was then. It still is today.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/03/pretty-on-the-outside/

Let me be crystal clear: I am glad that the county was able to renovate the exterior of that courthouse. It was able to secure a state grant, and then spent local tax funds — with voters’ approval — to finish the job.

The county vacated the courthouse years ago. It moved some functions across the street into the old jail building. The Justice Center was opened a few blocks away across the street from West Texas A&M University.

The old building? It’s empty. Its interior is a mess.

I wrote a feature story for NewsChannel10.com years after leaving the Amarillo Globe-News about a possible new tenant for the 1909 Courthouse: The City of Canyon considered moving in, according to City Manager Randy Criswell. Then the city backed off when the cost estimates proved prohibitive.

The Square has blossomed since the exterior renovation. Judge Houdashell is proud of what has happened to the Square: Businesses have sprouted up along once-empty storefronts. It’s active, vibrant, busy in downtown Canyon.

Houdashell credits the 1909 Courthouse for luring that activity.

That’s fantastic! Houdashell’s pride is justified. However, there must be a move afoot to complete this mosaic.

I haven’t asked my friend, Judge Houdashell, what he has in mind for landing a new tenant for the structure. My strong hunch is that with the Courthouse Annex project complete, he is likely to turn his significant deal-making skill to finding an organization interested in fixing up a grand-looking old building.

My sense is that the success already brought to Canyon by a renovated exterior will explode even more once they find someone who fix up and occupy its interior.

national news

Trump displays his delusion

Donald Trump is not at all shy about displaying his delusional traits whenever possible.

Such as today.

He told reporters that the best of the best are lining up, just anxious as the dickens to come to work in the White House, in the West Wing. Why, they’re falling over themselves to get hired by the Trump administration.

Except that he’s lying once again.

The best aren’t lining up. Indeed, the few grownups the president has brought aboard are bailing out right along with the nut jobs, ideologues and individuals under indictment for assorted criminal acts.

The latest actual adult to hit the road is Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser. Cohn quit over Trump’s fit of pique that resulted in his declaring his intention to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum.

Trump wants a trade war. He says it’ll be “easy” to win. Cohn disagrees. Indeed, Cohn was reportedly enraged at Trump’s response to the Charlottesville, Va., riot that killed a young counterprotester. You’ll recall how Trump said there were “fine people … on both sides” of a dispute that included KKK members, neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists.

Who in the name of good government would want to work in an administration led by someone who would equate racist/hate group members with those who oppose them?

The president’s delusion won’t allow him to recognize what the rest of the world sees clearly. The Trump White House is nothing more than a chaotic clusterf***.

Sick.

national news

Porn star sues POTUS … so, we just shrug?

Does anyone ever remember — or has anyone ever heard of — a pornographic performer suing the president of the United States?

I believe we are now officially, one more time, sailing through uncharted water.

Stormy Daniels has sued Donald John Trump over a non-disclosure agreement Daniels said is not valid because the president of the United States never signed it.

So, this means — according to Daniels — that she is free to speak with all deliberate candor about an affair she allegedly had with Trump back in 2006, shortly after his third wife gave birth to their son.

Trump’s lawyer paid Daniels 130 grand to keep quiet about the affair. Daniels has gone on TV talk show to smile and act coy when the show hosts ask her if she had the affair.

Now she is suing the president, seeking judicial affirmation that she can talk about it if she damn well feels like it.

What is so utterly astonishing is that we are talking about this matter while so many other issues need our attention and that many millions of Americans are just shrugging this seedy matter off.

Imagine if any of the men who preceded Donald Trump were being sued by porn queens.

political news, State news

Texas may become competitive, if not yet ‘blue’

The “blue wave” that some folks thought was getting ready to wash over Texas didn’t quite build into an epic event on primary election night.

Despite some reported “surge” among Democratic early voters in 10 of the state’s largest counties, the primary election produced a Republican lead over Democrats in the number of total ballots cast.

The verdict? Texas remains a Republican state.

The Texas Tribune reports that about 1.5 million votes were cast in the Republican primary, compared to about 1 million Democrats ballots being cast.

If you’re a Democrat, that’s the bad news.

The good news? Texas might be more competitive this year than it has been for the past couple of decades. Democrats are banking much of their party’s fortunes on a young congressman from El Paso, Beto O’Rourke, who’s going to face GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the general election this November.

I won’t predict that O’Rourke will beat The Cruz Missile this fall; nor will I predict that he’ll even give Cruz a legitimate case of the nervous jerks as this campaign unfolds.

The serious uptick in Democratic Party primary votes, though, does suggest that the predicted flip from Republican to Democrat might be starting to take shape. Has it taken full form just yet? I won’t say that, at least right now.

Political analysts suggest that the state’s changing demographics, with more Latinos living in Texas, mean the state well could become much more Democrat-friendly than it has been since the 1990s. Republicans likely can lay the blame at the man in the Oval Office, whose campaign and governing rhetoric has managed to enrage many Americans with Latin American heritage.

The talk concerning a reported Democratic “surge” among early voters, though, didn’t translate to a surge among all Texans who voted this week. Maybe that will occur later this year.

Or … maybe it won’t.

local news, political news

Seliger’s GOP win was big, really big

I cannot overstate the significance this week of state Sen. Kel Seliger’s victory in the Texas Senate District 31 Republican Party primary.

It’s significant on at least two levels.

One is that he faced — count ’em — two GOP foes in this primary. Empower Texans, a far-right political action organization, decided to “primary” Seliger because its leadership wanted someone who’s “more conservative” than Seliger has demonstrated during the 14 years he has represented West Texas.

Empower Texans sought to outflank Seliger, a former Amarillo mayor, on the right. His response was to remind voters that he’s conservative. His voting record is mainstream — but he’s a conservative. He proclaims his pro-life, pro-gun rights voting record as demonstrable proof of his conservatism.

The second level of significance deals with this fact: Unlike in 2014, when he faced just one foe in the GOP primary, this year he had two of them. One of this year’s opponents was Mike Canon, the former Midland mayor who Seliger beat four years ago by just 4 percentage points.

Let’s throw in a second right-wing opponent, Amarillo businessman Victor Leal. Between them, Canon and Leal garnered 49.5 percent of the vote. Seliger finished with 50.5 percent, or one-half of a percent more than he needed to avoid a runoff.

I have been unable to analyze the vote as it developed from top to bottom of District 31. My first glance at the vote totals tells me that Canon and Leal battled between themselves for the TEA Party wing vote, leaving the rest of the West Texas Republican voting bloc open for Seliger to harvest.

Canon’s first run for the state Senate in 2014 revealed to me that he spoke mostly in TEA Party slogans when the lights came on. In private, I found him to be personable, intelligent and articulate.

As for Leal, he spent much of his effort accusing Seliger of alleged nefarious relationships and too little of it explaining in any detail how he planned to represent West Texas differently than what Seliger has done.

Thus, Canon and Leal fought for the Republican fringe vote that exists out there. Critics of the senator are liable to say he “barely” won the primary. However, I look at it differently: He beat Canon by nearly 20 points and Leal by more than 30 points.

I would call that a serious drubbing.

local news

Sen. Seliger beats back demagoguery

I had hoped to call it last night. I had to wait until this morning to find out that Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger is returning to the Texas Legislature.

His victory in the Texas Republican primary is a win against demagoguery. Seliger had faced a stern challenge from two far-right opponents: former Midland Mayor Mike Canon and Amarillo restauranteur Victor Leal.

Canon ran against Seliger in 2014. Leal decided to run as well this year. My first thought was that Leal might peel off some Texas Panhandle votes from Seliger, tossing the contest into a runoff. Hey, guess what happened! Seliger piled up a significant majority in this three-way race, guaranteeing his re-election, given the absence of any Democratic candidates.

This is important for Senate District 31 voters for a couple of important reasons. One is that Seliger has established a stellar reputation among voters at both ends of the sprawling district; he is as fluent in Permian Basin-speak as he is in Panhandle-speak, and tailors his remarks according to the audience that hears them. The other is that he is a mainstream Republican conservative who is not prone to talking only in cliches and platitudes.

He knows the legislative process. Seliger has risen to a position of leadership among the 31 senators in the Legislature’s upper chamber.

All of that hasn’t been good enough for Empower Texans, a political action group that opposed his re-election. Seliger, for his part, has no good will to fling at Michael Quinn Sullivan, the fellow most associated with Empower Texans. Sullivan’s favorite legislator is Lt. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate. Seliger and Patrick aren’t exactly best buds, either, even though Seliger has been able to hold on to his chairmanship of the Senate Higher Education Committee. Given the presence of West Texas A&M University and several community colleges throughout District 31, it is critical that we have one of our own handling the gavel on this committee.

I am delighted to awaken this morning to news that my pal Sen. Seliger will get to continue to serving West Texas.

He has done a good job since 2004. However,  the job of legislating is never finished.

local news

Price cruising to re-election … good deal!

Take that, Empower Texans!

The far-right political action hack, er, group has decided that state Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, wasn’t their kind of legislator. So it backed a fellow named Drew Brassfield, the Fritch city manager, to challenge the up-and-coming lawmaker.

Price appears headed for a smashing victory against Brassfield, dashing the hopes of Empower Texans, which has been stalking a number of incumbents — many of them Republicans — throughout the state.

This victory means that GOP voters in Texas House District 87 don’t like being dictated to by political interests who (a) are based far away from the Texas Panhandle and (b) have no interest and/or knowledge of the issues that are unique to this region.

Instead, Empower Texans had funded a campaign that distorted and lied about Price’s voting record in the House.

My hope was that Rep. Price would squash Brassfield’s bid. With a healthy chunk of precincts reporting, Price is leading by about 50 percentage points.

I consider that to be a serious squashing.