Monthly Archives: May 2018

political news

‘Me Too’ snags another perp … allegedly

The “Me Too” movement has just landed another big fish … allegedly.

Eric Schneiderman is now the former New York attorney general who quit suddenly this week after allegations surfaced that he mistreated at least three women. One of them says Schneiderman slapped her hard across the face during a sexual encounter she said was “unwanted.”

Schneiderman, a Democrat, of course denied doing anything wrong, or “non-consensual,” but he resigned anyway.

One of the more hideous aspects of this latest big-time pol’s fall from power is how he was so public in criticizing the misbehavior of other public figures, such as the disgraced Hollywood film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

There’s a lesson to be heeded here as many political observers ponder Schneiderman’s own disgrace.

  • Democrats need to be forceful in their condemnation of this man’s behavior, presuming it is true; I happen to believe the accounts that have surfaced.
  • Moreover, Republicans need to take great care to avoid politicizing this too heavily; I mean, they have their own high-profile pols who’ve been tarred by allegations by women who’ve come forward in this new era of “Me Too” and “Time’s Up.”

As for Eric Schneiderman, he needs to face the same level of scorn he heaped on others while defending the women who came forward to accuse them of ghastly behavior.

local news

Driverless car service? Umm, no thanks!

As a soon-to-be resident of a North Texas community, I believe I shall declare here and now that I have zero intention of ever partaking of a new service that a neighboring community will allow.

Frisco is going to allow a driverless service. Yep. Get into a motor vehicle and let it take you where you want to go.

No-o-o-o thank you!

The Texas Tribune reports: The service, reported Monday by The Dallas Morning News, will first be accessible in July for roughly 10,000 employees working in a bevy of corporate offices located less than a mile away from The Star, a retail and dining area that also serves as headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys. The service will also be free for the first six months.

The service reportedly will expand beyond this limited accessibility … eventually.

Until the day comes when there can be an ironclad guarantee that this technology is absolutely, unequivocally fool-proof, I always will sit in a motor vehicle with a fellow fallible human being sitting behind the steering wheel.

The idea of an even more -fallible “Drone Car” mingling on our streets and highways with the rest of us scares the bejabbers out of me.

There. I’m out.

local news

Is a vet school on its way? Maybe? Possibly?

I don’t rely on my trick knee as much as I did in the old days. It’s led me astray too many times, such as when its throbbing told me Hillary Rodham Clinton would be elected president of the United States in 2016.

It’s throbbing yet again. The source of the pulse happens to be a possible — or perhaps it’s now probable — school of veterinary medicine in Amarillo.

Texas Tech University wants to build a vet school in the Panhandle. It already has a pharmacy school and a health sciences center in Amarillo. A vet school could add a huge new rung on Tech’s educational ladder in the Panhandle.

We might be witnessing the tangible benefits of having an economic development corporation at work on behalf of Amarillo. The Amarillo EDC is expected to step it up Tuesday in its effort to persuade Tech to build the veterinary medicine school here. The project is expected to cost about $90 million.

What’s more, the Mariposa Village Community Land Trust has donated the land for the Texas Tech School of Veterinary Medicine. That, dear reader, is a huge development.

The Amarillo City Council is expected to make some announcements soon, possibly Tuesday, about the the Texas Tech project. I’ll wait along with the rest of the community that is interested — and supportive — of Tech’s possible new academic addition to the Texas Panhandle.

Meanwhile, my ol’ trick knee keeps on throbbing.

national news

McCain wants Trump to stay away, but wait …

Sen. John McCain reportedly has made his feelings known about Donald J. Trump: He doesn’t want the president of the United States to attend his funeral, according to what the media are reporting.

That is Sen. McCain’s call. I won’t challenge it, nor should anyone else.

But let me put out just another perspective on this kind of antipathy and whether it should follow someone to the grave.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was running for president when a gunman shot him to death on June 5, 1968. He sought to succeed President Lyndon Johnson, a man he detested with virtually every fiber of his being. What’s more, the feeling was so very mutual, as LBJ loathed RFK with equal fervor.

Sen. Kennedy was just 42 years of age when he died and likely didn’t give much thought to who should attend his funeral, let alone express it to anyone close to him.

RFK’s requiem took place at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Among the attendees were President Johnson, along with first lady Lady Bird Johnson.

It was generally known in 1968 that Sen. Kennedy and President Johnson detested each other. I don’t recall in the moment much public discussion about whether the president should attend the funeral of his bitter political foe.

So, he did.

It begs the question, though, for the present day: Given Sen. McCain’s reported desire that Donald Trump stay away from his funeral, should the president honor the senator’s request when that sad day arrives?

The nature of today’s media climate suggests to me the president would be smart to stay away. Memories are long and my hunch is that Trump’s presence at a ceremony that would pay tribute to a war hero whose service he once denigrated would dilute the honor that Sen. McCain will so richly deserve.

local news, political news

Partisan labels should not elect judges

My wife brought up a subject today that got me fired up. Her question played straight into my wheelhouse, hit me with an issue against which I have been ranting for, oh, many decades.

Partisan election of judges. That’s the issue.

“Isn’t it just wrong to say ‘Wade Overstreet, Republican for judge'”? she asked as we drove past an Overstreet for judge lawn sign.

Yes, it’s wrong. It’s also legal in Texas.

I have not a single thing against Wade Overstreet, who’s running for a judgeship in Potter County. My wife and I are unable to vote in that runoff election, given that we’re registered to vote in Randall County.

I do have plenty of things against the way we elect judges in Texas. My first option would be to go to an appointment process, followed by a retention election. It’s a voting policy used in several other states. The governor appoints a judge, who then stands for retention after a term; voters then get to decide whether to retain the judge or demand that the governor finds someone else.

My second option would be to elect judges on non-partisan ballots. Get rid of Republican and Democratic judges.

I have asked judicial candidates for many years — back in the day when I worked as an opinion journalist in Beaumont and Amarillo — a fundamental question: Can you explain to me the difference between Democratic and Republican justice?

My wife noted with her usual intuitiveness that judges’ jobs are to follow the law, interpret it without regard to politics.

Indeed, one can assess a judge’s judicial philosophy — whether he or she is too harsh or too lenient in bench rulings — without the crutch of a partisan label.

There once was a time when competent Republican judges got the voters’ boot because they were of the “wrong” party in a state that once leaned heavily Democratic. The state flipped from Democrat to Republican about two decades ago. Now we see competent Democratic judges and judicial candidates getting the same treatment from voters who punish them for being members of the wrong party.

It’s wrong. Sadly, it won’t change likely within my lifetime.

Uncategorized

Irony abounds in this NRA selection

Ohhh, the irony of it all.

Oliver North is set to become the next president of the National Rifle Association, the nation’s premier gun-rights advocacy group.

He’s a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who got caught up in a scandal that rocked the nation three decades ago.

The irony? Oh, it’s just that it involved sale of illegal weapons to our enemies in Iran, not to mention dealing with rebel fighters in Nicaragua.

North was accused of shading the truth and waffling on his explanation of what he was doing and for what purpose he was doing it.

It’s perfect, yes? He gets now to run the NRA, an organization with its share of critics who contend that the organization isn’t always truthful about its claims that more guns in the hands of more people create a safer society.

Sheesh!

Maybe it’s just plain karma that puts Oliver North in charge of the NRA. As Mother Jones notes: The Iran-Contra scandal was a dark episode, in which the US government hooked up with shady arms dealers and a variety of sleazy crooks and con men around the globe, including drug-runners. At a time when Nancy Reagan was promoting her “just say no” campaign, the secret operators of her husband’s administration were saying yes to a host of shady miscreants. And North was among those making common cause with criminals.

The NRA brand needs a lot of help in many political circles throughout the United States. Naming a fellow such as Oliver North as its next president doesn’t do a thing to improve the NRA’s image.

That’s just my view. I am quite certain others of a different political ilk believe quite differently.

national news

McCain is the anti-Trump in every possible way

I hereby endorse the thoughts expressed in a wonderful New York Times essay by columnist Frank Bruni.

They are simple and right to the point: U.S. Sen. John McCain is virtually everything that Donald J. Trump is not.

McCain is a man of honor who has sacrificed for his country in ways the rest of us only can imagine; Trump has thought only of himself.

McCain is quick to embrace his former foes; Trump holds grudges.

McCain doesn’t dwell on the immense pain and suffering he endured while being held captive during the Vietnam War; Trump demands pity for any slight, real or imagined.

Bruni’s essay is written as a tribute to a man, Sen. McCain, who is fighting for his life. Tragically, it appears to be a fight he won’t win ultimately.

I want to share the essay here. It’s worth your time.

Bruni honors McCain.

I share Bruni’s view that even though one can disagree with Sen. McCain’s politics, one can admire him greatly for the character he has shown in his public life and for the courage he is demonstrating as he wages this valiant fight.

As Bruni writes about Sen. McCain: “I don’t remember another time in my life when so many Americans considered someone’s partisan affiliation a test of whether that person was entitled to their respect,” he writes, ruefully, adding that while (Joe) Biden, Ted Kennedy and other Democratic friends of his never voted for the same candidate for president as he did, his friendships with them “made my life richer, and made me a better senator and a better person.”

Such grace is unimaginable from Trump. That’s why it’s so vital that McCain is using his waning time to model it.

International news

What in the world? GOP lining up in favor of Iran deal?

I do believe that hell has frozen over. It’s official, I’m tellin’ ya!

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry has said out loud that he “would advise against” Donald Trump pulling out of the deal that seeks to prohibit Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal.

That’s right. Thornberry, who usually stands foursquare behind the president’s idiocy, is now sounding downright reasonable and rational in urging the president to back off his threat to pull out of the Iran nuke deal.

Thornberry said this on Fox News Sunday: “Secretary (of Defense James) Mattis talked about the inspectors that are in there. Does Iran kick those inspectors out so that we lose what visibility we have there?” he asked. “The Europeans are not going to reimpose sanctions. So where does that leave us and Iran? You need to have a clearer idea about next steps if we are going to pull out, and especially given the larger context of Iran’s aggressive activities in the Middle East.”

This comes from a lawmaker who initially opposed the Iran deal. Why? Well, beats me. Maybe it was merely because it was struck by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

According to NBC News: Other Republicans have said they are hoping that the Trump administration modifies the agreement so that it addresses certain holes such as not addressing Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Thornberry is far from the only former deal critic to take another look at it.

Trump says he plans to announce Tuesday whether he is pulling out of the deal. I hope he modifies his initial blanket opposition, despite the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who calls the deal a disaster and an invitation for Iran to go to war with Israel.

As for Thornberry’s change of heart, I certainly welcome whatever influence the Clarendon Republican might wield with a president who, um, listens to nobody.

State news

Packin’ heat becomes more fashionable, eh?

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has received a bill on her desk that she is likely to sign. I wish she wouldn’t. But that’s just me. She doesn’t care what a Texas resident thinks of the mistake her state’s legislature has just made.

The Oklahoma Legislature has approved a bill that allows Oklahomans to carry a gun without obtaining a permit or a license to do so. That’s right. If you’re able to strap a gun to your hip or tuck it into an ankle holster, just go right ahead.

No worries about whether you’re qualified to pack the heat.

Good grief, man! What’s going on here? The Amarillo Globe-News notes that Oklahoma would join several other states that allow folks to carry a weapon without a required license or permit. Texas isn’t one of them, as the Globe-News notes correctly.

But I prefer the Texas way of giving people permission to pack heat. They need to take a rudimentary class on firearm safety and then pass a simple test. Then they can obtain a permit from the state. The G-N seems to think that government shouldn’t be involved … to which I say, “Bull dookey!”

Read the G-N editorial here.

I have accepted the Texas system of allowing concealed carry permits, although I don’t endorse it. Yes, I know what the Second Amendment says about the “right to keep and bear arms.” The 1995 Texas Legislature approved the concealed-carry law and, yes, I was one of those who was concerned about a potential spike in gun violence.

A state, though, is not imposing an unreasonable or dictatorial restriction on gun ownership by requiring residents to pass a simple test after taking a simple course before they can pack heat; Texas also has an open-carry provision that allows folks to carry guns in full view — but only if they have a concealed carry permit.

I hope Gov. Fallin vetoes the gun bill that has arrived on her desk. I do not expect her to do so.

Sigh.

State news

Farenthold chooses to stiff his former constituents

So much for doing the right thing … yes, Blake Farenthold?

The former Corpus Christi congressman had a chance to pay back his constituents for the disgraceful way he exited public office, but has chosen to ignore the request from a fellow Republican politician, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott had demanded that Farenthold pay for the cost of a special election to replace him. You see, Farenthold quit Congress amid allegations of sexual harassment. He made matters even worse by dipping into a taxpayer-funded pool of money totaling $84,000 to pay off settlements leveled against him by former staffers.

Abbott said he is disappointed in Farenthold’s decision. He ought to feel worse than that. Let’s try “outraged,” or “insulted,” “mad as hell.”

Abbott’s letter to Farenthold noted that his disgraceful conduct was the sole reason for having the special election in the first place and that the former congressman owed it to his former constituents to pay for the election in full.

The Texas Tribune reported: A spokeswoman for Abbott called the decision “disappointing,” but said “it’s not surprising that his last act would be to stick taxpayers with the bill at the worst possible time.”

“While Mr. Farenthold may consider this resolved, we’re not closing the case on this issue,” said Ciara Matthews, Abbott’s deputy communications director.

Farenthold said he planned to repay the fund, but hasn’t yet done so. Any bets on whether he’ll deliver on that pledge? Don’t hold your breath.

Disgraceful.