Monthly Archives: July 2018

International news

Trump takes ‘unconventional’ to a stunning new level

Donald John Trump pledged to become an “unconventional” president after he was elected to the office.

Of the promises he has kept, this is the one he has upheld in spades.

The president has just “blindsided” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to cite just the latest example of his unconventional approach to international diplomacy. He uses Twitter to make statements on his own. Trump believes the presidency entitles him to do so. I guess it does, but there’s considerable peril in this practice.

Trump tweeted a message threatening punishment for Turkey if that nation doesn’t release an American who has been held captive for several years. Pompeo has been negotiating for this American’s release and — surprise! — he had no idea the tweet from Trump was coming.

This is how Trump governs. He surrounds himself with “the best people” and then stiffs them whenever he fires off a Twitter message without their knowledge.

He doesn’t bother to tell his national security team when he gets a bur under his saddle and threatens to destroy regimes in, say, North Korea or Iran. He invited Russian President Vladmir Putin to Washington, had his national security adviser put the word out and he never told Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Trump flies by the seat of his pants. He keeps his own counsel. He relies on no one, yet he brings these “brilliant minds” on board ostensibly to provide him with advice.

Unconventional? Yeah, do you think?

It’s also dangerous, reckless, feckless and mindless.

This man with no public service experience is leaving wreckage all along every path he travels. He has brought some good people on board, but he ignores them repeatedly.

This “unconventional” presidency of Donald Trump’s well could get us all into a heap of trouble.

Sports news

Texas AirHogs speak Chinese?

I saw a story in the Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News and chuckled quietly as I pondered how I might respond to it.

You can read the story here.

It’s about an independent baseball team that plays its home games in Grand Prairie, near Dallas. They call themselves the Texas AirHogs. But here’s where the chuckle comes in: Its roster is populated by Chinese athletes who are getting some playing time while preparing for the Asian Games in 2020.

There’s more. This team used to play some of its home games in Amarillo. The team once was based exclusively in the Panhandle, then it decided to split its “home” schedule between Amarillo and Grand Prairie.

Over time, the team decided to move exclusively to Grand Prairie, where it now is a training ground unit for the Chinese national baseball team.

My head is spinning over this one.

And it damn sure makes me glad that Amarillo is on the verge of welcoming a AA major-league-affiliated minor-league team that next spring begins playing hardball at the downtown Amarillo ballpark that is now under construction.

There won’t be this kind of Mickey Mouse baseball going on with a team associated with a bona fide Major League outfit. They will play baseball in a shiny new park, ushering in a new era for the city’s profound image makeover.

Good luck, Grand Prairie. Amarillo’s fortunes have taken a significant turn for the better.

national news

Rep. Jordan seeks to follow Speaker Hastert; oh, the irony

This cannot possibly be happening. But it is.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan wants to become the next speaker of the House of Representatives. The current speaker, Paul Ryan, isn’t running for re-election. Ryan has endorsed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy as his successor, according to The Hill.

That hasn’t dissuaded the young Freedom Caucus co-founder, Jordan, from joining the speaker fray in the fight to become the person who is second in line to presidential succession.

But … this is a richly ironic candidacy. It has nothing to do with Jordan’s legislative record. It has everything to do with, um, sex!

Jordan has been accused by several former Ohio State University wrestlers of looking the other way while these athletes were being sexually abused by a team doctor. Jordan denies the accusations categorically. Still, they are mounting up, much like the women who accused a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice of abusing them when they were much younger.

The irony? It goes like this: A former U.S. House speaker, Dennis Hastert, pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to the abuse of young boys he coached many years ago in an Illinois high school. Hastert wasn’t charged specifically with sexual abuse, as the statute of limitations had expired. He did admit to doing so, however, during his sentencing.

I just find it strange, weird and oh, so ironic that Jordan would seek the same office once held by someone who also got himself into deep doo-doo over a sexual abuse matter.

You also can bet the farm that Democrats are going to use Rep. Jordan’s own set of (alleged) troubles against him as they seek to re-capture control of the House of Representatives in this fall’s midterm election.

national news

Welcome aboard the ‘anti-meddling’ bandwagon

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd is a man after my own heart.

He, too, says “meddling” is too mild a term to describe what the Russians did in 2016. That is, he says the Russians didn’t merely “meddle” in our presidential election.

Todd pointed out that “meddle” defines when someone takes an interest in something that is not their concern. Yep, that’s meddling. My American Heritage Dictionary says meddling is “to intrude into others’ affairs.”

Todd wants to know what term to use to describe what the Russians did. Interfere? Attack?

I prefer “attack.” It was a direct assault on our democratic process. They intended, according to U.S. intelligence analysts, to swing the election in Donald John Trump’s favor. Whether they had a tangible impact on the election result, of course, remains a wide-open question.

But I agree with Todd. “Meddling” doesn’t cut it as a term to define what the Russians did.

environmental news, local news

Cities’ conundrum: whether to limit water use and cut revenue

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Janet Rummel, public relations and communications officer for the North Texas Municipal Water District, has a possible word to the wise to city officials who might be reluctant to enact water-use restrictions in the face of a punishing drought.

If you are concerned about a loss of revenue collected from water use fees, then your reluctance to impose water conservation measures carries even greater risk.

You will run out of water, Rummel warned in remarks to the Rotary Club of Fairview.

Much of the state remains caught in drought conditions. The Texas Panhandle, where my wife and I lived until this past May, went through an entire winter with any measurable precipitation. No snow. No rain. Nothing!

North Texas didn’t fare much better than the Panhandle, as I have learned.

So, cities that are pondering whether to impose restrictions on water use face the mother of conundrums: Do they interfere with their revenue stream, depriving their municipal coffers of money used to fund various public services?

The NTMWD, based in Wylie, serves about a dozen communities north and east of Dallas. Rummel talked about the array of measures that the district has taken to improve the quality of water; it also is planning to spend a significant amount of money to improve the delivering of water.

From my standpoint, a city that faces the prospect of running dry — of losing its water supply — has no choice whatsoever than to impose limits, even if it chokes off the revenue it uses to pay for the myriad municipal services it provides. Moreover, I am amazed that city officials would be so reluctant to take a proactive stance that conserves this priceless natural resource.

And yet, according to Janet Rummel, cities are wringing their hands over such a decision. I find the quandary a non-starter.

national news

Wherefore art thou, Kellyanne?

Kellyanne Conway is MIA.

The president’s senior policy adviser, someone known to be “friendly” with the media who has become a fierce advocate for Donald J. Trump’s agenda, whatever it is, has been oddly silent in recent weeks.

Controversy continues to swirl around the president. Conway was known to be front and center, availing herself to interview after interview to any media outlet that came calling.

It was on “Meet the Press,” you might recall, where in 2017 she coined the term “alternative facts” to describe some sort of nonsense that came from then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

That didn’t muzzle her. But lately? Conway is virtually nowhere to seen or heard.

Honestly, I miss seeing her and hearing the, um, “alternative facts” she throws out for public consumption.

Come on, Ms. Conway. Get back in the game.

media news

White House sinks to new level of juvenile petulance

A reporter for CNN has found out she has friends.

Her colleagues are standing with her in the wake of a petulant White House decision to bar her from a press event in the Rose Garden.

What got Kaitlin Collins in trouble with the White House? She asked some tough questions. That’s it, man! She was doing her job.

Well, the White House banishment of her hasn’t gone over well. Get a load of this statement from Fox News, the favorite cable network of Donald John Trump Sr: “We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press” Fox President Jay Wallace says in statement.

A “free and unfettered press” needs “full access” to the people in power. Yep, they do. Jay Wallace’s defense of Collins is spot on.

Donald Trump is demonstrating time and again that he possesses the thinnest skin in a president since, oh, Richard M. Nixon. That goes back more than four decades. President Nixon was known to exact revenge against media members, particularly the Washington Post, which led the journalistic investigation into that “third-rate burglary” known as Watergate.

This president, No. 45, is setting a new standard for presidential petulance.

As The Hill reported: “Wannabe tyrant Donald Trump is banning reporters he doesn’t like from official press events,” McGovern tweeted. “Journalists like [CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins] ask questions not just for their news outlet, but on behalf of all Americans.”

“Shutting them out is a slap in the face to our democracy,” he added.

Except that the president shows us damn near daily that he is ignorant of the value that a free press brings to a free society.

national news

GOP launches impeachment against deputy AG?

What am I missing?

Congressional Republicans have accused their Democratic colleagues of being fixated on impeaching Donald J. Trump. They say Democrats would obstruct Congress’s business with their fixation.

So, what do GOP members do to, um, counteract that phony claim? Why, they draft articles of impeachment against Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Robert Mueller to be the special counsel to lead the investigation into the “Russia thing.”

This, folks, is a thinly disguised effort to derail the Mueller probe of the president’s alleged ties to Russians who attacked our 2016 presidential election. They are calling it a “witch hunt.”

So, their target of choice is Rosenstein, a fellow Republican appointed to his post by, um, Donald Trump.

The articles were drafted by Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, co-founders of the right-wing Freedom Caucus.

According to CNN.com: In a statement, Meadows said Rosenstein should be impeached because of the Justice Department’s stonewalling of congressional subpoenas and hiding information from Congress, and for signing one of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewals for Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

This impeachment effort won’t go anywhere. Support in the House is sketchy at best; in the Senate, it’s virtually non-existent.

What, then, is the point? Meadows and Jordan are pi**** off that Mueller’s probe appears to be closing in on the president. What it produces at the end is anyone’s guess.

It just goes to demonstrate once again that members of Congress insist on throwing stones at the other side without acknowledging their own shortcomings.

Get a grip, congressional Republicans. Let the Mueller investigation end on its own power.

national news, political news

POTUS seeks to control news information flow

Donald J. Trump’s reported anger over first lady Melania Trump’s desire to watch CNN aboard Air Force One brings to mind a curious conversation I had with a key staffer who worked for U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Clarendon Republican who represents the 13th Congressional District of Texas.

Trump wants all the TVs on the presidential jet to be tuned to Fox News, his favorite news/commentary network. He considers CNN and other news networks to be purveyors of “fake news.” What makes ’em “fake”? They report news the president deems to be negative. I presume he’s issued the same edict for the TV sets throughout the White House.

So, negativity equals “fake news.” Got it?

OK, back to my conversation with the Thornberry staffer.

We were visiting some years ago. I was working for the Amarillo Globe-News. This individual was talking about a news report she heard. She then told me in a hushed voice over the phone that she heard the report “on NPR.”

Oh, my! Heaven forbid! A staffer for a conservative Republican member of Congress would get her news from National Public Radio! She didn’t want it heard, I guess, by her fellow staffers that she was listening to NPR.

I laughed at her over the phone. She happens to be a friend and we have had a very constructive and productive professional relationship over the years.

I was able to needle her about NPR and the myth that the publicly funded radio network was somehow a progressive mouthpiece for left-leaning politicians.

It isn’t. Public radio reporters and other staffers have informed me over the years about how they were schooled in the manner they should describe public policy. For instance, one NPR news hound informed that the Affordable Care Act would not be referred to on the air as a “reform” measure; “reform” connoted an improvement over the current system. The term that NPR reporters were instructed to use is “overhaul.”

Are we clear? Good!

International news

Toughest POTUS ever on Russia? Aww, c’mon!

Donald J. Trump has no shortage of hyperbole. The president trots it out whenever he damn well feels like it.

Such as this: “I have been the toughest president on Russia … ever!”

Really? Hmm. Let’s review that bit of bluster, shall we?

October 1962: President Kennedy gets intelligence that the Soviet Union was building offensive missile sites in Cuba. He consults with his national security team. They debate whether to attack the sites, invade Cuba, do nothing, or impose a blockade on the island nation. JFK chooses to blockade Cuba. He then speaks to the world on national TV and warns the communists that an attack on any nation in the Western Hemisphere would result in a “full retaliatory response” from the United States.

The Soviets backed off. They took down the missile sites. World War III was, thus, averted.

June 1987: President Reagan ventures to West Germany. He already has described the communist regime in Moscow as the Evil Empire. The president goes to the Brandenburg Gate separating East and West Berlin and bellows, “Mr. (Mikhail) Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

There have been other instances of U.S. presidents acting sternly in response to Russian (or Soviet) aggression. President Carter ordered a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in the previous year. President Bush 41 oversaw the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama all had their instances of spine-stiffening resolve as they involve the Russians. I include the Soviet Union era in this discussion because, well, the Soviets were Russians, too.

And yet the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, keeps insisting — without any demonstrable evidence — that he’s the toughest president of all time against the Russians.

Give me a break.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of history knows better.