Monthly Archives: April 2018

media news

Fox News seeks to become ‘fake news’ network?

I have to give credit to a Fox News reporter, Ed Henry, for seeking some answers from Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt.

Hey, if the network allows more of this line of questioning, it will become part of the so-called “fake news” cabal that Donald Trump keeps excoriating.

Henry interviewed Pruitt about the ethics controversy that is boiling at Pruitt’s feet. He and his wife rented a pricey condo from an oil industry lobbyist for $50 a night. Henry asked Pruitt if that is the way to “drain the swamp” that the president keeps insisting is part of his Washington, D.C., agenda.

Pruitt said the question “isn’t remotely fair.” Actually, it was totally fair. I give Henry great credit for standing up to this guy.

Pruitt is unfit for the job anyway. That he would be taking what amounts to a gift from a lobbyist who is trying to influence EPA policy smacks of maximum conflict of interest.

I know it. Ed Henry knows it. It well might be that the president knows it. However, Pruitt pushes back by saying a tough question isn’t “remotely fair.”

Pruitt doesn’t get it. I doubt he will. He needs to go.

As for Fox News and one of its top-gun reporters, well done.

political news

Is this the year to give campaign cash?

I have had an active interest in politics for 50 years.

It probably began the moment I shook U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s hand late one night in the parking lot of a trendy Chinese restaurant just before the 1968 Oregon Democratic Party presidential election.

I wasn’t old enough to vote that year. My first vote came four years later when I cast my first presidential ballot for Sen. George McGovern.

In those five decades, though, I’ve never given money to a political candidate. Not for president. Or U.S. Senate. Or House of Reps. Or governor. Or any other state or local office.

My career path precluded that level of political activity. As a journalist in Oregon and then in Texas, I simply could not in good conscience support a candidate with money.

I never took the oath of political abstinence that many in my craft have pursued. I always voted. Many other reporters and editors have vowed never to cast a vote for a candidate in an effort to maintain some level of objectivity when covering these politicians … or commenting on them.

I’ve long understood that voting is a private matter. We cast our ballots in secret. We are not obligated to divulge for whom we’ve voted.

I departed full-time journalism in August 2012, which means I got to vote in another presidential election that year. I did so again in 2016. In between, I voted in the 2014 midterm election and have voted already in the 2018 primary; I intend fully to cast a ballot this year in the fall election.

I am facing a bit of a quandary. There are some political candidates I like — a lot! Whether I prefer them over their opponents enough to give them money remains an open question.

One disclosure I need to make: One 2018 candidate for public office, the U.S. House, is a close personal friend, a man for whom I have the highest regard. If anyone is going to get some of my dough, he is likely to be the one.

About the closest I’ve come to donating to politicians is at tax-filing time; I routinely dedicate a portion of my tax returns to public campaign financing, which I support in the strongest terms possible.

My interest in politics only has grown over the past 50 years. Even though I haven’t yet emptied my wallet. This might be the year.

national news, political news

RFK writes compelling back story about MLK Jr.’s death

The world reeled in grief 50 years ago today when word broke out that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot to death in Memphis, Tenn.

The grief turned to anger in many cities across the United States. African-Americans reacted violently. They rioted. They burned cities.

But one major American city — Indianapolis, Ind. — remained calm. Why? Another man who was just two months from his own tragic and untimely death spoke to a crowd and broke the terrible news to them.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was running for president in 1968. He heard about the shooting. He asked his aides if the crowd that was waiting to hear a campaign stump speech knew that Dr. King had died. He was told they likely didn’t know. Bobby Kennedy had to tell them.

So he did. He spoke for six minutes after telling them he had “terrible news” to deliver. In just a few minutes, RFK managed to lend a word of comfort and, indeed, empathy. His own brother, President Kennedy, had been felled by a gunman less than five years earlier. “He was killed by a white man,” Sen. Kennedy said in seeking to quell the feelings of hatred that some in the crowd might harbor “toward all white people.”

He spoke of the need for more “love” and “compassion” in the United States.

The result in Indianapolis was that its residents didn’t react in the manner that tore many other cities apart.

Robert Kennedy, with those brief words, delivered perhaps one of the greatest political speeches in U.S. history. Its message, though, reached far beyond the partisan concerns of a politician seeking election to the nation’s highest office.

The politician spoke to a nation in the deepest grief imaginable.

Tragically, he would march on to his own horrifying end, triggering yet another round of grief.

environmental news

Hit the road, Mr. EPA Director

I’ll now join the chorus of those who want to see EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tossed out of office. He should be shown the door and told to avoid letting it hit him in the backside as he hits the road.

The man was a terrible selection to lead an agency whose mission is to “protect” the environment. The former Oklahoma attorney general made a lot of noise suing the Obama administration, seeking to overturn regulations designed to do the very thing that the EPA is charged to do. The Environmental Protection Agency is now better named the “Environmental Destruction Agency.”

Now he’s in some serious trouble ethically. He and his wife rented a condo from an oil company lobbyist. They got into the place dirt cheap. Meanwhile, the lobbyist was trying to persuade the EPA to roll back regs the oil company the lobbyist was representing wanted rolled back.

Gosh! Do you think there might be a conflict of interest here? I do. So might the president of the United States. At least two Republican members of Congress have called on Pruitt to quit.

Here’s my favorite: Donald Trump has issued a tepid endorsement of Pruitt. And you know how those endorsements usually end up. Trump endorsed former White House strategist Stephen Bannon: gone. He did the same thing for former national security adviser H.R. McMaster: gone.

Trump’s statements of support are worth, oh, just about nothing. Which makes them worth just as much as damn near anything the president says in public, out loud, on the record.

Pruitt is a lousy choice to lead the EPA, even without this latest matter involving a serious breach of ethics.

Get him out of there, Mr. President.

military news

FYI, Mr. President … you need Congress to OK this one

Psst. Here’s a little secret that Donald J. Trump didn’t mention when he said he wanted to deploy American military personnel along our border with Mexico.

The president cannot act alone. He needs Congress to approve it.

Trump has declared that because our immigration laws are “so weak,” he needs to send soldiers to the border to be on the lookout for illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States of America.

Trump wants to military to patrol the border while he commences and completes construction of his “big, beautiful wall” that is going to stop the flood of bloodthirsty criminals flowing across our border. Isn’t that what he says is occurring?

So, he’s thinking out loud yet again. With no thought whatsoever. Did he say he would ask Congress to approve his request? Oh, no! He simply declared his intention to deploy American military personnel to do whatever it is they intend to do on American soil.

This is the kind of thing that requires another branch of government to sign off.

In 1957, President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Ark., to stand by while local school officials sought to integrate Central High School. Ike asked Congress for permission to do it; Congress agreed, so the president issued the order.

There remains a sequence of events that must occur before a president does something so dramatic — and drastic — as Trump has pitched.

He is merely demonstrating a show of muscle. He isn’t giving a moment of thought or deliberation to add context to what he is proposing.

That’s just Trump.

Hey, he’s “telling like it is,” right?

national news

MLK Jr. changed so much in so little time

Martin Luther King Jr. walked this Earth for only 39 years.

Then it ended. It was 50 years ago. A single rifle shot struck down the great man.

We are going to see a lot of tributes to Dr. King in the next day or two … or maybe beyond as the nation reignites its grief over this monumental loss.

I’ll watch them and wonder: How in the name of soaring rhetoric does someone so young speak with such wisdom? Dr. King did that. He spoke to all Americans on behalf of “my people.” He told us about that dream he had, of how “little black children” would one day walk with “little white children,” how his own children would be judged only by the “content of their character.”

Do you remember the August 1963 speech, his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered to hundreds of thousands of people on the Washington, D.C. Mall? He was less than five years away from his own death. He also was just 34 years of age when he stirred our souls.

He led a non-violent movement. He preached “civil disobedience” in the strictest definition of the term. Those who marched with him paid heavy prices in blood, sadly. Dr. King himself spent time in jail, where he penned even more words of wisdom that will live for the ages.

I want to add a disturbing note to this tribute to Dr. King, and it has next to nothing to do with the great man himself.

It is that the individual who changed history with a rifle shot at that Memphis, Tenn., motel balcony was just another in a big crowd of losers. James Earl Ray would die in prison. The hateful, spiteful individual sought notoriety. Damn, he got it!

The 50-year commemorations no doubt are going to wonder: What if Martin Luther King Jr. had lived? Would we be a different nation today? I am not smart or prescient enough to know with certainty, but I believe Dr. King could have shaped the national discussion toward achieving “a more perfect Union.”

The ultimate tragedy — beyond the obvious grief that came to one man’s family and the nation he sought to inspire — is that we cannot know the path we would have taken had Dr. King been allowed more than just 39 years.

State news

Happy Trails, Part 88

SAN ANGELO STATE PARK, Texas — I chatted up a young tow-truck driver this morning and then said something that sort of just flew out of my mouth.

I was telling him about being retired, about selling our house and how our fifth-wheel RV is our “residence.”

“That means we have nowhere to go,” I said. An instant later, I corrected myself. “Or, you can say that it means we have everywhere to go.”

Yes. I should have said the second part first, and then omitted the rest of it.

You see, the RV lifestyle we have adopted means that (a) our “house” is hooked up to the back of our pickup and (b) we have an entire continent to explore while we are still able.

We have embarked on another fairly short-term trip. It’ll last about two weeks.

We’ll depart San Angelo State Park soon, heading to Lockhart State Park just south of Austin. After that we haul our “house” to Village Creek State Park just north of Beaumont.

We owned property in Beaumont fro 1988 until 1995. We loved that house. We enjoyed the street. It was quiet and heavily wooded. A hurricane took care of much of the tall timber in our old neighborhood not long after we departed for the Texas Panhandle.

Hurricane Harvey inundated the Golden Triangle this past summer and we want to see the damage that the storm did to our house. I hope it’s intact these days.

After visiting friends in Beaumont, we will shove off for North Texas to see our son, daughter-in-law and our granddaughter.

Then we return to Amarillo.

I hesitate now to call Amarillo “home,” for the reason I cited at the beginning of this blog post. Our “home” is riding along with us wherever we go.

***

Pickup update: I am happy to report that our pickup truck, which broke down on U.S. Highway 87 yesterday afternoon, is fixed. It’s healthy. Good as new … or almost!

I spent a good bit of time trying to find a towing company and then a mechanic to repair our truck. The power steering broke. It turned out to be that the water pump also blew apart.

It’s all repaired.

And we are on the road again — in search of the next big surprise. We just want it to be a pleasant one.

legal news, State news

Ethan Couch is back in the news … oh, joy!

For as long as he lives — more than likely — Ethan Couch is going to be remembered for one infamous occurrence.

How he received a probated sentence after he killed four pedestrians in Tarrant County, Texas — while driving drunk.

Couch was 16 years of age at the time. His lawyer defended him by saying that because he comes from a wealthy family, he didn’t know that what he did was wrong. It became known as the “affluenza defense.”

Funny, huh? Not really. Then the boy violated the terms of his probation when he fled with his mother to Mexico. He was returned to Texas and spent two years in the slammer.

The young man is now 20. He’s out of jail. He’ll try — I presume — to restart his life.

Do I feel sorry for him? Hah! Not in the least. I feel even less sorry for Mom, who truly knew better when she spirited her kid to Mexico. She’s awaiting trial on a charge of hindering the apprehension of a felon and money laundering.

Good grief!

If she’s convicted, this person needs to spend the maximum sentence available.

Welcome back to the spotlight, Ethan. Mind your Ps and Qs.

media news

Trump vs. Bezos, er … Amazon

Gosh, do you suppose just possibly the president of the United States is angry with Amazon.com because its owner, a guy named Jeff Bezos, happens to also own one of the nation’s leading newspapers — which has written deemed to be critical articles of the same president?

Let’s try to assess the real reason for Donald J. Trump’s anger.

He contends that Amazon is undercutting the U.S. Postal Service. He’s been tweeting his brains out over Amazon. It’s been Amazon this and Amazon that. He’s been browbeating and berating the company via Twitter.

I have to wonder out loud: Why hasn’t he gone after Facebook with equal ferocity, given that medium’s relationship with a company, Cambridge Analytica, that used Facebook customers’ individual data for political purposes — which allegedly sought to benefit the Trump presidential campaign?

Not a peep from POTUS on that one.

Amazon? That’s a different story.

Bezos’s newspaper, The Washigton Post, has been dogged in its reporting of matters affecting, let’s see, “the Russia thing,” Trump finances, the Cabinet shuffle, the chaos and confusion within the West Wing, Jared Kushner’s role as a Middle East peace broker … that kind of thing.

Trump keeps yapping that The Post is reporting “fake news,” which in itself is the height of irony, given that the president is the “purveyor in chief” of fake news. But … I digress.

Trump’s so-called anger with Amazon looks to be nothing more than a case of cyberbullying by the leader of the free world against an Internet mogul who moonlights as the owner of a first-class newspaper that doesn’t slobber all over the president to his liking.

national news

Hey, Mr. POTUS, DOJ is on our side

So sad that the Department of “Justice” and the FBI are slow walking, or even not giving, the unredacted documents requested by Congress. An embarrassment to our country!

I’ll give you just one guess where that statement came from. Time’s up! It came from Donald J. Trump, via Twitter — of course!

Have you or any of us ever seen a president of the United States of America disparage our federal law enforcement community in such a manner? Have any of us seen a president show such utter disregard for the professionals who toil in the trenches or who make command decisions on behalf of the country they all take an oath to protect?

He keeps disparaging Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He continues to undermine the field agents of the FBI, as well as their bosses at the Hoover FBI Building. He torpedoes the work of career prosecutors who work for the Justice Department.

He does so using social media, which if you consider the way he is using it to proclaim his distrust and distaste over policy matters, ought to be renamed. There’s nothing “social” about the way Trump uses — and abuses — this particular medium.

I’m tellin’ ya, the man is a disgrace to his office.