Monthly Archives: June 2018

International news

Bring the Russians back to the table?

Let me try to keep this straight.

Donald Trump wants Russia returned to the economic group comprising the world’s leading economic powers. The Russians were kicked out of what was known as the G-8 because it annexed Crimea and launched military action against Ukraine; they have done not a damn thing to remove themselves from that conflict.

Meanwhile, the president chastises our actual allies and trading partners because they object to the punishing tariffs he has imposed on steel and aluminum they export to the United States.

What am I failing to grasp?

Trump’s pique against Canada is particularly galling. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau objects to Trump’s description of Canada as a “national security risk,” pointing out how Canadians died alongside Americans on the beaches in Normandy during World War II and how the nations have been the closest of allies for many decades.

Trump says Trudeau is being “indignant.”

Good grief!

Now he wants the Russians back in.

According to The Hill: “Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run,” Trump said. “And in the G-7, which used be the G-8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.” 

Oh, and then we have the Russian meddling in our 2016 presidential election. Right there is a legitimate, tangible, identifiable, demonstrable risk to our national security.

So help me, the man elected as president of the United States himself is a frightening risk to our national security and sovereignty.

media news

Krauthammer: ‘My fight is over’

Charles Krauthammer could have forged a stellar career in medicine after graduating from Harvard Medical School. He became a psychiatrist.

Then he went into public service, joining the Carter administration and serving as a policy adviser and speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale.

Eventually, Dr. Krauthammer gravitated rightward. He became a columnist, a pundit — and a sharp one at that.

Fox News Channel came along and hired Krauthammer as a contributor to the network, where he burnished his conservative commentary skills and where he became a stalwart of the network’s array of commentators.

Today, this brilliant essayist and pundit has announced that his doctors have given him only “weeks to live.” Krauthammer’s cancer has returned. The prognosis is as grim as it gets.

Allow me this moment to express my profound sadness at what is likely to transpire.

Back when I was working for a living as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News, Krauthammer emerged as one of my favorite columnists, whose work we published regularly.

He is a brilliant essayist. He writes with precision and is concise in stating whatever view he wants to project.

Did I agree with him? No, but that’s not the point. One need not agree with someone to appreciate and admire his or her work. I admire Krauthammer’s brilliant mind and appreciate the courage with which he speaks. He speaks without outward rancor. He doesn’t “scream” his rhetoric while presenting his view of how the world should turn.

Here is Krauthammer’s note announcing his prognosis, published in the Washington Post, where he worked as a columnist since 1984.

Krauthammer says goodbye

This news saddens me terribly.

***

You are welcome to take a look at something I wrote in October 2009 about Charles Krauthammer. My thoughts about were as strong then as they are today.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/10/a-word-or-two-dispelling-a-rumor/

The man can turn a phrase.

 

 

legal news, Sports news

Ali might get pardon? Eh? For what?

Donald J. “Ignoramus in Chief” Trump Sr. reportedly is considering a pardon for, get a load of this, the late Muhammad Ali.

Please, Mr. President, do some homework — for once, will ya?

The Greatest does not need a pardon. Do you understand?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1971 that the boxing authorities that stripped Ali of his heavyweight champion title violated his constitutional rights that (a) guaranteed his freedom of religion, (b) allowed him to protest peaceably the federal government and (c) allowed him freedom of speech.

You see, Ali protested the Vietnam War by refusing in 1967 to accept induction into the U.S. Army; he cited his Muslim faith as the basis for his refusal to be drafted. The boxing authorities then decided to deny him the right to earn a living by stripping him of his ability to box, to defend his heavyweight title. He was cast out of boxing for more than three years.

The nation’s highest court rectified that injustice by overturning his conviction on draft evasion. What’s more, President Jimmy Carter issued a pardon for all Vietnam War draft dodgers — and that included Muhammad Ali.

Earth to Trump: The Greatest of All Time does not need a presidential pardon!

Now, get ready for that summit with Kim Jong Un.

national news

These cops stepped way over the line

I keep watching that ghastly video of those Mesa, Ariz., police officers pummeling that suspect and am inclined to ask: Didn’t they train these cops how to restrain someone without resorting to this kind of violence?

Many of you have seen it, too. The cops responded to a domestic violence call. They found this guy standing next to a wall. They told him to sit down. He refused. The cops surrounded him. Then they started punching this individual in the face, wrestling him to the ground. Oh, and then they slammed his head into an elevator door.

I should add that the suspect was unarmed!

This police department has some recent history of over-the-top response to first response calls. An officer shot a man to death in a hotel hallway as he was pleading for his life. The officer was acquitted of murder charges, but then was let go by the department.

I have some knowledge about this issue.

In 2013, I was working part-time as a juvenile supervision officer for the Randall County Youth Center of the High Plains. Part of our training involved ways we could subdue residents of the center who, um, resisted obeying our instructions. We were instructed on ways to secure the individuals without resorting to punching, elbowing, kicking … whatever.

My question now as I watch that frightening video of the Mesa cops’ response is this: Weren’t these officers instructed to use similar techniques on the guy they ended up pummeling?

Take a good look at the physical stature of some of those officers. They’re brutes, man!

Mesa, you have a problem.

entertainment news

Suicide takes another celebrity

Kate Spade. Now it’s Anthony Bourdain.

Both of these individuals were huge in their respective spheres: Spade as a fashionista; Bourdain as a TV personality/storyteller/food critic.

They took their own lives. The entertainment world is in shock.

We are likely to hear expressions of profound grief and shock that Bourdain is now gone. He was working on a CNN special in France when a friend found him in his hotel room.

What are we to make of this?

After Spade’s tragic death, word came out about an increase in suicide in recent years. The response has been to stoke awareness among friends and loved ones of those who might harbor thoughts of suicide.

By all means we must maintain vigilance. We must be cognizant of those we know who are troubled by whatever pressures they are feeling in the moment.

I was not dialed in too intently to the work of either Spade or Bourdain. However, as a human being who knew someone who took his own life, my heart aches for the pain inflicted on the loved ones who are suffering today.

The advice we are receiving, to be alert to the pain of those closest to us, should serve as a serious wake-up call.

International news

Normalization? Sure, but first things first

Donald Trump has placed yet another bargaining chip on the table as he gets set to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

He said he wants to “normalize” relations with the reclusive Marxist regime.

OK, then. Where do we start with that?

Let’s recall the conservative outcry that erupted when President Barack Obama raised the Stars and Stripes over the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba.

Why, we cannot have normal relations with them Cubans. Look at the way they treat their citizens, not to mention that they promote terrorism abroad, they said. That communist Fidel Castro promised to be a reformer when he took over the country in 1959, but he damn sure didn’t live up to that promise, they howled. He made things worse!

Never mind that the Cubans never posed a direct military threat to the United States, particularly after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991. Yes, we had that Cuban missile crisis in 1962, but President Kennedy took care of that with a blockade and the threat of a “full retaliatory response” if the Soviet Union used those missiles to attack any nation in this hemisphere.

So, what will the current president demand of the North Koreans?

What’s more, are we going to hear howls from the right wing about the North Koreans’ treatment of its citizens? Or about how the government starves its people while spending billions on a military apparatus that now includes nuclear weapons?

And what about the North Koreans’ direct military threat to this country, and to the South Koreans, and to Japan?

I do believe as well that Kim Jong Un’s regime has been sponsoring terrorism abroad, too.

I am all in on normalizing relations with North Korea. Any effort to create a U.S.-North Korea bond, though, carries more preconditions than U.S.-Cuba relations did.

To think the president says he doesn’t need much “preparation” in advance of his meeting with Kim Jong Un.

He needs to rethink that bit of idiocy.

national news

Recalling a great discussion among friends

This video is among my all-time favorite public television news broadcasts. It features a PBS NewsHour discussion with the late U.S. Sens. George McGovern and Barry Goldwater.

A liberal (McGovern) and a conservative (Goldwater) talked political differences between them and sought to put the 1988 presidential campaign into some sort of civil and proper perspective.

The moderator was Jim Lehrer, a fellow whose acquaintance I made while I was working in Beaumont many years ago. More on that perhaps at another time.

What Sens. McGovern and Goldwater sought to do in this discussion is delineate the differences between their respective philosophies. What is so remarkable is how much common ground these two old men had found and how they believed they found it when they served together in the U.S. Senate.

How did they manage such commonality? Well, they didn’t talk about it in their PBS interview, but I have a theory.

Their common respect was forged in their common history and their shared sacrifice during a time of dire peril for the United States.

McGovern and Goldwater served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. They both served heroically during that conflict. They brought their commonality together when they ended up in the Senate together. McGovern represented South Dakota, Goldwater represented Arizona.

They were far from the only two men of disparate philosophies to forge friendships in the Congress during their time together. I think often of how Sen. Bob Dole developed a unbreakable bond with Sen. Daniel Inouye; Dole is a Kansas conservative, Inouye was a Hawaii liberal. They, too, became brothers in arms in World War II, both suffering grievous battlefield injuries and going through rehab together. Their common suffering became their bond and it overrode whatever political differences they had while serving in the Senate.

Vietnam produced similar friendships that transcended partisan politics. I’ll cite two examples: Sens. John McCain and John Kerry both served with valor and distinction during the Vietnam War. McCain is a Republican; Kerry is a Democrat. They both worked in tandem to allow the United States and Vietnam to establish diplomatic ties long after the end of that terrible and divisive conflict.

These men all knew the meaning of sacrifice for the sake of the country they all loved.

As George McGovern told Barry Goldwater during that 15-minute PBS discussion, they have much more in common now than they did in the old days. Yes, but the common experience they brought with them to their shared public service taught them to respect the other’s point of view, that the “enemy” didn’t sit in the same legislative chamber.

national news

Is Trump issuing pardons on a whim?

My delight at the commutation of a life sentence for a non-violent drug crime is tempered somewhat by what I sense is the manner in which Donald J. Trump made his decision.

Alice Marie Johnson had served 21 years of a life sentence. Then the president intervened. He commuted her sentence. Johnson was able to go home to her family. She learned that “everyone has a phone” these days and plans to purchase a cellphone.

But … how did the president reach this decision?

He listened, apparently, to the pleas of a reality TV star, Kim Kardashian West. I guess she was appealing to Trump — reality TV celebrity to reality TV celebrity.

Did the president seek a legal analysis of the case from the Justice Department? Did he consult with legal counsel? Did he base his decision on a careful study of the merits of the case?

It doesn’t appear to be the case regarding any of it. That’s particularly true as it regards the DOJ, given that he has spent a lot of energy and Twitter rage of late savaging the “leadership” of the Justice Department and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

He is said to be considering pardons for two “Celebrity Apprentice” contestants who appeared on the TV show Trump hosted before running for president: businesswoman Martha Stewart and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Is this a perk he is deploying for his pals? His political allies? Those who speak well of him — and about him?

I understand the presidential power inherent in this pardoning process. However, I get this nagging sense that Trump is cheapening it by the seemingly capricious nature of the pardons he has issued to date.

My “favorite” pardon involved former Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been sentenced to a prison term for disobeying a court order to stop profiling Hispanics he suspected of being illegal immigrants. That was nothing more than a disgraceful payback for the political support Arpaio threw at Trump when he was running for president.

Trump looks to be abusing the authority the Constitution grants him.

The president decided correctly regarding Alice Johnson. My concern is that he reached that decision out of favoritism rather than the law.

International news

POTUS: I don’t need to prepare for summit

Donald Trump said what? That he doesn’t need to prepare for a landmark summit meeting with the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un?

The president says the meeting set for next week will float or sink on “attitude.”

OK, then.

Do you think Kim is flying by the seat of his pants as the historic meeting approaches? I do not believe that’s the case.

Which brings me to pose this question: Will an unprepared Trump be able to reach some sort of rapprochement with an adversary with whom we have been at war since 1950?

Politico reported today: In extensive remarks during a visit from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump mused about what might come out of the Singapore summit scheduled for next week, telling reporters that he’s “totally” prepared to walk away from the negotiating table, that he’s holding out hope for normalized relations with the repressive regime, that the U.S. could strike an agreement to formally end the Korean War, and that he could see hosting Kim in America if the meeting goes well. 

Trump has indicated the meeting could only be the first of several such meetings that produce groundbreaking agreements.

Does anyone out there wonder how in the world the president figures to make any constructive steps toward those ends without cracking the books, poring through briefing papers, learning about the man with whom he will meet?

Look, we all should hope for the best. We all should want the president to succeed, for the sake of the nation and the world. No one should want to be in a constant state of tension with a nation that possesses nuclear weapons. And no one should endorse a president who continues to threaten that nation with “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen.”

“Attitude” well might be insufficient to produce a result that Trump wants. Oh, I do hope the president can succeed in this wholly unconventional run-up to a landmark summit.

My fear keeps me from believing fully in his ability to pull it off.

political news, State news

Texas gerrymandering: here to stay?

I am getting precariously close to surrendering on my long held view that Texas legislators have no business redrawing legislative and congressional boundaries every 10 years.

I used to speak often about the need for a non-partisan commission to do the job. It might prevent the kind of hideous gerrymandering of districts that are drawn with the intent of benefiting one political party at the expense of the other.

Take a look at the map above and you get a hint of the kind of thing I’m talking about. The 13th Congressional District, where I once was registered to vote, stretches from the top of the Panhandle way over to the Metroplex. Someone needs to tell me what in the name of “community of interest” the Metroplex has in common with the Panhandle. Yet the congressman, Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, is supposed to be well-versed and fluent in all aspects of the district’s varied issues.

While you’re at it, take a gander at that monstrosity aka the 15th Congressional District in South Texas and the two hideously drawn districts that run essentially parallel to it on either side north from the Rio Grande Valley.

Politicians aren’t going to give up the power they possess when they get to redraw these boundaries at the end of every decade. When the Census Bureau finishes counting all the residents of a state, then it falls onto that state the duty to realign congressional and legislative districts, all of which need to contain roughly equal numbers of residents.

I cannot get out of my head something that the late state Sen. Teel Bivins, an Amarillo Republican, once told me. He said he hated redistricting with a passion, but noted that his legislative colleagues weren’t about to surrender the task to someone else. He then said the exercise demonstrates how “Republicans eat their young.” I don’t know exactly what he meant by that. To my way of thinking, the duty illustrates how politicians of one party eat the “young” of the other party!

It’s a process few of us understand. The latest Texas redistricting effort is facing a court challenge by those who allege that the boundaries were drawn to discriminate against minorities and Democrats. We’ll see how it plays out.

The Texas Tribune has offered a fascinating analysis of the process. Read it here.

You well might be as resigned as I am becoming to the notion that Texas politicians who hate the process of redrawing those lines just cannot live without the headache.