Monthly Archives: August 2018

business news

Does the special counsel have those Trump tax returns?

I keep getting this throbbing in my trick knee that suggests that special counsel Robert Mueller might be able to answer the question that has been bugging millions of Americans like me.

What is in Donald John Trump’s tax returns, the returns he refuses to release for public inspection?

That ol’ trick knee of mine suggests that Mueller has obtained those returns as part of his investigation into “The Russia Thing.” Trump won’t release them, making some sort of phony claim about being under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

Of course, Mueller has substantial authority to get a lot of information that doesn’t come out through regular channels.

I’m waiting with some anxiousness for Mueller to finish this probe while telling us what many of us want to know: Are there business dealings in Russia that Trump wants to keep hidden from the public?

Sports news

Common denominator with sports figures and Trump?

The Hill newspaper has posted an item online that chronicles the sports figures who have clashed with Donald J. Trump.

I am struck, as are you, with the common denominator that stands out. All the celebrities are African-American.

Check out the story here

The sports figures — and I use the term “figures” because one of the men mentioned is LaVar Ball, the loudmouth father of a pro basketball player, LiAngelo Ball — all have gotten into beefs with the president, who has taken to Twitter to castigate them.

Is it a mere coincidence that all these individuals are black?

Or … is the president singling out these fellows because of their racial background?

I hate thinking that the president is a racist. The evidence continues to mount that the president’s worst instincts are proving to be so tragically true.

Uncategorized

Tension tonight at Trumps’ dinner table?

I am probably the only American who wants to be a fly on the wall tonight when the president and first lady sit down for dinner.

Donald J. Trump decided to post that moronic tweet in which he blasts pro basketball great LeBron James for saying some nasty things about him. Oh, and he also took a cheap shot at CNN anchor Don Lemon, who he called the “dumbest person on TV.” Racist … perhaps? Yeah. Pretty sure it is.

Oh, but then first lady Melania Trump’s spokesperson said the first lady salutes James for his work to improve the lives of children. “It looks like LeBron James is working to do good things on behalf of our next generation and just as she always has, the First Lady encourages everyone to have an open dialogue about issues facing children today,” said Stephanie Grisham on Mrs. Trump’s behalf.

What has James done? He has opened a school in his native Akron, Ohio, for at-risk children. He has invested a significant portion of his massive wealth to help aspiring students.

Indeed, James has done more for children than the president has done. Or for that matter, anything the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has done.

Still, the president saw fit to disparage LeBron James with what many — myself included — have construed to be a racist taunt.

The first lady’s minor break with her husband is significant mainly because she has chosen to speak out at all, even if it through her spokeswoman.

There might be a bit of tension tonight wherever the Trumps will be.

local news

It’s official: Amarillo is the tightest community in America

1 Comment

A dinner date last night in Plano, Texas, cemented what I’ve long felt from the moment my wife and I moved to Amarillo, Texas, in early 1995.

It is that Amarillo, a city of about 200,000 residents, is the most tightly knit community I’ve ever seen. It might be the tightest community in America.

Here’s what I mean …

We had dinner with four young people, two couples. One of the young men is a former colleague of mine at the Amarillo Globe-News. I had met his wife once many years ago. The other couple also hail from Amarillo; they are close to the first couple I just described. The two young women are cousins.

We chatted and laughed through the evening over dinner and beverages. Then one of the young women said, “Since you were with the newspaper, you might know my stepdad.” I asked who that would be. She mentioned his name. My jaw dropped. I slapped my forehead. Her stepdad happens to be a prominent commercial real estate developer.

Of course I know him. I’ve known him fairly well for many years.

This encounter was just one of a countless string them of them my wife and I have had over the years living in Amarillo. We would meet total strangers. Then we would find out that they either are (a) close personal friends with those we know or (b) are related to them.

Then to have this encounter 350 miles away from Amarillo and find out that there really are very few degrees of separation — or so it seems — from anyone in the Texas Panhandle community just affirms what I’ve believed all along.

Everyone in Amarillo seems to know everyone else.

I wonder now if (six degrees of separation from) Kevin Bacon has ever been to Amarillo. Surely he has.

national news, political news, Sports news

Stick to things that really matter, Mr. POTUS

Dan Rather has it right when he lambastes the president of the United States over a ridiculous message sent out via Twitter regarding — and this is rich! — comments from the world’s greatest professional basketball player, LeBron James.

Rather, the one-time CBS News anchor, said this, also via Twitter: This is apparently what the President of the United States feels the need to share with the world at what should be long past his bedtime? It’s a disgrace. It’s racist. And it’s the product of petty but dangerous hatreds. I repeat this is the PRESIDENT??!?

Trump had posted this message: Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!

Yep, the commander in chief, the leader of the free world, the head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation is concerning himself with some comments that LeBron James has made about the president.

Read The Hill story here

Did I mention that James has just opened a new school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, giving at-risk kids a chance to achieve greatness? There. I just did.

Or the fact that James is married to his high school sweetheart, has been faithful to her over many years of marital bliss? That, too.

Yes, James — as well as CNN news commentator Don Lemon — happen to be African-American. So that means that POTUS, the liar in chief, feels compelled to question their intelligence. Is it just a coincidence, too, that Trump has singled out African-American football players for their decision to “take a knee” during the playing of the National Anthem at the start of football games? I, um, think not.

Disgraceful.

media news

Trump lacks any semblance of decency

When a conservative columnist writes that Donald John Trump will have blood on his hands if more harm comes to journalists, then you might be able to start thinking that the president is on the verge of losing his mind.

Bret Stephens writes for the New York Times. He states: “Donald Trump’s more sophisticated defenders have long since mastered the art of pretending that the only thing that matters with his presidency is what it does, not what he says. But not all of the president’s defenders are quite as sophisticated. Some of them didn’t get the memo about taking Trump seriously but not literally. A few hear the phrase ‘enemy of the people’ and are prepared to take the words to their logical conclusion.”

Read Stephens’s column here

Let’s ponder something for just a moment.

Trump stood before a rally in Pennsylvania this week and hollered hysterically yet again about the “fake, disgusting” media.

I don’t believe the 70-something president suffers from short-term memory loss or dementia. Surely he must remember the recent massacre that killed five people at the Annapolis, Md., newspaper. Certainly he must recall that he sent his “thoughts and prayers” to the victims’ families.

Can he not connect the dots that tie his fiery anti-media rhetoric to the actions of the shooter in Maryland? Sure, the shooter had a specific beef with the Capital Gazette. Would he have acted so violently without the kind of vitriol that’s been flying out of the president’s mouth for the past couple of years? I’m just wondering out loud, man.

I think it’s time I resurrect the time-honored question: Have you no sense of decency, Mr. President?

International news, national news, political news

Just how can they tolerate being undermined?

This is as baffling and confusing a circumstance as any I can find within the Donald Trump administration.

Several key intelligence and national security officials — including at least two Cabinet-level authorities — declare for all the world to hear that the Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016; they all say the same thing, that the Russians acted alone and that they are in the process of doing the same thing to our 2018 midterm election. They enter the White House press room, listen to press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders say a few words, then they all speak in unison.

Then the president of the United States, Donald John Trump, flies to a campaign rally and declares the Russian attack a “hoax.” He blames Democrats and the so-called “fake and disgusting news” for fomenting the notion that the Russians interfered in our election, that they sought to manipulate the outcome.

The baffling and confusing part?

How do these individuals charged with administering our intelligence and national security agencies tolerate being undermine, undercut and undone by the commander in chief?

How in the name of their sacred oaths do they stay on their jobs while the president continues to disparage and disrespect them? He undermines their work, insults their intelligence and does damage to our national security.

Surely they cannot all be without principles. Surely they must understand what Donald Trump is doing to their credibility and that his insistence that the Russia attack is a “hoax” gives aid and comfort to a hostile foreign power.

I won’t call it “treason,” at least not yet … but damn!

It is inching very close to it.

national news, political news

POTUS turns back on intelligence chiefs

The nation’s top intelligence and national security gurus stood before the nation this week at the White House and declared what many of knew already.

The Russians attacked our democratic system in 2016 and are engaging in a similar attack at this moment, trying to disrupt the 2018 midterm election.

All of them said the same thing. They sang in perfect harmony.

Then the president of the United States jetted off to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He rambled on for more than an hour. He trashed the “fake news” media. He railed against Democrats. The president called the Russian attack a “hoax.”

Do you think Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump Sr. would deign to offer some perspective or context about what the nation’s intelligence hierarchy had said just a little earlier in the day in the White House? Heavens no!

Trump was intent on whipping up the crowd that gathered to hear his campaign pitch. Mission accomplished, Mr. President.

He continues to dismiss this Russian attack. He continues to give short shrift to the need to protect our democratic process against future attacks. He ignores the “blinking red lights” that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said are warning us of impending peril at the hands of hostile-power cyber warriors.

As I listen to the president’s voice keep rising, and as I watch him rant and rail against his foes, my fear keeps getting reaffirmed.

The president is not living up to the sacred oath he took to protect the government and, thus, our nation, against our enemies.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Beto and Barack vs. Cruz and The Donald?

Barack H. Obama has issued his first round of Democratic Party endorsements in advance of the midterm election.

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke no doubt was wanting the 44th president to endorse his candidacy against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. He didn’t get it.

Some of my Republican-leaning social media acquaintances have reminded me that the ex-president stiffed O’Rourke. I’ll answer them here: The Obama endorsements are likely to be followed by another round prior to the election.

It’s fair to ask: Do these endorsements really matter? Does an endorsement from a president who lost Texas by double digits in 2008 and 2012 pack enough political ummpph to carry Beto O’Rourke across the finish line ahead of the Cruz Missile? That’s problematic at best.

I would pay real money, though, to attend a campaign rally featuring Barack Obama. Now that I live in Collin County, just one county north of Dallas County — which Obama won in his two presidential election bids — there is at least a remote chance he might come here to campaign for Beto.

As for the GOP side, I am wondering about whether Donald Trump will stump for Sen. Cruz. He well might harbor some reticence. Why? Cruz did say some really harsh things about his then-Republican Party primary foe — that would be Trump — back in 2016. He called Trump “amoral,” a “pathological liar” and a guy with zero decency.

Cruz has taken a different tack, naturally, since then. But that other stuff is still out there in the public domain. It provides ample grist for foes to use against Cruz. And against Trump, for that matter.

national news

WH provides phony cover for Trump

White House senior aides are swilling the Kool-Aid that makes them lie for the president of the United States.

They keep saying that Donald J. Trump is just dying to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that is examining whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our democratic system in 2016.

Does anyone really believe Trump wants to talk to Mueller? Does anyone believe that he can skate through an interview with a meticulous lawyer who has been working for more than a year in search of the truth behind this matter?

I do not believe it for a minute. Indeed, Trump has been getting plenty of armchair legal advice from Republicans to stay as far away from Mueller as possible.

That is far closer to the truth than the fiction being tossed out there by the White House staff and by Trump’s legal team.

Mueller appears to be closing in … on something or someone! I have no clue where he is going with this probe.

If the president were to ask me for my advice, I likely should say: Don’t do it, Mr. President. Then again, given that I detest the president, maybe I would succumb to the mischievous angels on my shoulder and tell him: Sure thing, go for it!

However, I am nowhere near the center of this tumult. I do believe that the Trump/White House legal team is lying about the president’s so-called “desire” to talk to Mueller.