Monthly Archives: October 2018

national news

Yes, Mr. President, you deserve to share the blame

Donald Trump sees himself as one of the victims of the crisis that has erupted over the delivery of explosive devices to those who have been critical of him.

Here is what White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said this week, according to Politico: “I think it is absolutely disgraceful that one of the first public statements we heard from CNN yesterday was to put the blame and responsibility of this despicable act on the president and on me personally,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Thursday.

She subsequently told reporters that Trump is no more responsible for the attempted bombings than Sen. Bernie Sanders was responsible “for a supporter shooting up a baseball practice field last year,” referring to the June 2017 Alexandria, Va., shooting in which four people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) were shot.

I hear what Sanders is saying here. However, she and her boss — the president — need to fathom an essential element. Donald Trump needs to acknowledge that his fiery rhetoric has contributed to the nation’s sour political mood. He needs to acknowledge publicly his role in this national quarrel.

He refuses to do so. He blames the media for its negative and “false” coverage. He blames Democrats for fomenting hatred of Republicans and of himself.

Since the press aide brought up the Alexandria shooting by a left-leaning gunman and the grievous wound delivered to House Majority whip Steve Scalise, I want to remind y’all of this item.

Scalise’s terrible wound was greeted with expressions of prayer and support for him by his Democratic colleagues. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi led the call for his full recovery.

The president has yet to offer any expression of support directly to former Presidents Clinton and Obama. Or to the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, or to a former attorney general, Eric Holder, or to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters. Or to CNN, the media outlet he routinely calls a purveyor of “fake news.”

Yes, the president has contributed to this crisis. What is “absolutely disgraceful” is his refusal to recognize it.

economic news, national news

TEA Party? Where have you gone?

Don’t you remember when the 2010 midterm election produced a “shellacking” of the Democrats? It was delivered by what was then called the TEA Party.

Eight years ago, the TEA Party was the dominant insurgent force within the Republican Party. The TEA Party comprised Republicans who were fed up with being taxed too much.

Indeed, in recent years I’ve been using the term “TEA Party” in all capital letters, because it was born of a movement that proclaimed itself to be “Taxed Enough Already,” hence TEA Party is an acronym.

The TEA Party drove then-House Speaker John Boehner — a leader of the “establishment wing” of the Republican Party — to just this side of nuts. Indeed, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Clarendon Republican and a friend/ally of Boehner, told me he believed Boehner was going to bail from the House because he was tired of battling the rebels within his GOP caucus.

It turned out Thornberry was right. Boehner quit the speakership and the House in 2015. He’d had enough.

The TEA Party has its share of lawmakers who’ve taken their message forward. Ted Cruz of Texas is one of them.

But since about 2016, we hear less of the TEA Party and more of another insurgent group of Republican lawmakers calling themselves the Freedom Caucus. It, too, is a low-tax outfit committed to cutting government spending on programs that have become part of the national fabric. You know, programs such as Medicare, Medicaid … those kinds of things.

The Freedom Caucus has picked up where the TEA Party (seemingly) left off in opposing the Affordable Care Act. They want to repeal the ACA, but I haven’t heard about whether to simply repair the ACA, make it better, preserve those elements of it that are working.

The Freedom Caucus has become every bit the political gadfly that the TEA Party became to the point of sending a speaker of the House of Representatives packing in the middle of his term.

It’s not that I miss the TEA Party. I don’t. I’m just wondering out loud how these movements come and go and how replacement insurgencies come to the fore.

I happen to favor good government, not necessarily big government. The TEA Party — wherever it is — wants to gut government. As one who appreciates the role government plays to improve people’s lives, I wouldn’t mind one bit if the TEA Party would simply vanish, never to be heard from again.

Same for the Freedom Caucus.

media news

Editorial boards need not reflect the community

A friend of mine challenged a blog item I posted earlier today that called attention to the Dallas Morning News’s endorsement of Beto O’Rourke in this year’s campaign for the U.S. Senate.

My friend noted that “of course DMN” would back the Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Dallas County voted Democratic in 2016, as well as in 2012 and 2008. The paper, my friend noted, was going with the community flow.

I felt compelled to remind him that newspaper editorial boards — at least in my experience — do not necessarily strive to reflect the community’s leaning.

The example I gave him involved my nearly 11 years in Jefferson County, the largest county of the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Texas.

I worked for the Beaumont Enterprise, serving as editorial page editor. On my watch, the Enterprise endorsed Republican presidential candidates in three elections: 1984, 1988 and 1992, even though Jefferson County voters endorsed by significant majorities the Democratic candidates for president in all three elections. I told my friend the following: So … newspapers do not always reflect the communities’ political leaning. They adhere to their own philosophy or — more to the point — to their ownership’s philosophy.

So it was in 1984 particularly, when the publisher told us point blank that we were going to recommend President Reagan’s re-election. There would be no discussion. A different publisher told us the same thing in 1988 and 1992: We were going to endorse George H.W. Bush for election in ’88 and for re-election in ’92.

That’s how it works. The newspaper and its corporate ownership march to their own cadence, not necessarily the drumbeat of the community it serves. I went to Amarillo in January 1995 and learned the same thing, although the Texas Panhandle is even more solidly Republican than the Golden Triangle was solidly Democratic in the 1980s and early 1990s.

What’s more, Morris Communications, which owned the Amarillo Globe-News until 2017, is far more wedded to conservatives and Republicans than the Hearst Corporation, which still owns the Beaumont Enterprise.

It is true that Dallas County has tilted Democratic in recent election cycles. It also is true that the Dallas Morning News has endorsed plenty of conservative candidates and stood behind plenty of conservative issues over many years.

The Morning News is not a doctrinaire publication. Although I do not know what transpired when the paper’s editorial board deliberated over whom to endorse in this year’s Senate contest, I know that the published record reflects an editorial board that is far from rigid in its political outlook.

Believe me, I know a rigid media organization when I see one. I’ve worked for them.

national news

Trump demonstrates he is utterly without hope

I have admitted already that I am an eternal optimist. I tend to assume the best in people until they reveal themselves to be something I don’t expect.

That eternal optimism has prompted me to write on this blog that perhaps someday Donald Trump will learn to “act presidential,” that he would keep the promise he made upon being elected.

What does he do? He proves me wrong time and again.

Charlottesville gave him a chance to reveal his presidential chops. Then in the wake of the riot in which a white supremacist allegedly ran down a counter protester he said “there were fine people … on both sides!” Yes, he elevated Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists to the same level of those who protested against them.

Then he went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria savaged the island territory and engaged in arguably the weirdest photo op anyone’s ever seen: The president tossed rolls of paper towels at a crowd assembled in front of him. Then he got into a public pis**** match with the San Juan mayor over whether the federal government was doing enough to help the stricken island.

Time and again he has failed to rise to the occasion laid before him. He demonstrates a profound lack of empathy, of compassion, of caring for the needs of others.

Still, I hung to the faintest of hope that he would learn how to act and sound like the president of the United States of America.

Now we have a case of bombs being sent to Democratic politicians, a major news outlet, a major Democratic campaign financial donor and two former Democratic presidents of the United States, a former vice president and a former CIA director. Trump hasn’t called the two former presidents — Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — or former VP Joe Biden to offer words of support to them or their families. How do I know that? Because if he had, Trump would tell us!

He now blames Democrats for the anger that has engulfed the nation. He blames the media for their reporting of “fake news.” He tosses out blame and takes not an ounce of responsibility for what he has done to contribute to the toxic climate that infects our public discourse.

He has failed … again to demonstrate the qualities of leadership we expect in our president.

I no longer am going to wish that he will find it within himself. Yes, I know others gave up on this individual long ago, that I am late to the party. However, I have arrived.

The man no longer deserves the benefit of any doubt at all. I am officially convinced the president is a political reprobate.

media news, State news

Beto reels in another key endorsement

Another major Texas newspaper has aligned itself with a young challenger who is trying to redraw the state’s political map.

The Dallas Morning News today endorsed Beto O’Rourke for the U.S. Senate. The Democratic congressman from El Paso is challenging Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.

The DMN’s editorial approach is quite interesting. The newspaper endorses many of O’Rourke’s policy stances, such as developing Texas’s vast array of alternative energy sources, comprehensive immigration reform (while opposing construction of a wall) and calling for universal background checks on those who want to buy a firearm.

The newspaper’s editorial board also endorses many of Cruz’s policies — on taxes, on relaxing business regulations and on his views of improving security at our public schools.

The paper, though, favors O’Rourke because of the huge potential of seeking unity and compromise were he elected to the U.S. Senate. The DMN is critical of the divisive tone Cruz often expresses. The newspaper also suggests that Cruz is more interested in his own future than in the state’s future.

O’Rourke has been taking a largely positive message across our vast state, according to the DMN, although the paper does criticize O’Rourke for invoking the “Lyin’ Ted” epithet that Donald Trump hung on Cruz during the 2016 GOP presidential primary campaign.

Is this endorsement going to prove decisive? Probably not. Cruz continues to hang on to a slim lead and he well might win re-election in less than two weeks. Plus, the public’s trust in newspaper editorial boards has waned in recent years.

I’ll just add that the Dallas Morning News is no “liberal mouthpiece.” It has a long tradition of supporting conservative candidates and causes, just as the Houston Chronicle has exhibited — even while it endorsed O’Rourke’s campaign against Cruz.

Read the DMN endorsement here.

The paper has made a strong statement in favor of fundamental change in the state’s political leadership. Yes, I agree with it, but the point here is the way the newspaper has framed its endorsement.

The Morning News is spot on.

media news

POTUS fails to deliver on unity pledge

Where do we stand at this moment?

Authorities are discovering bombs being sent to offices of Donald Trump’s critics. Two of those critics happen to be former presidents of the United States. The current president vows to seek “unity” and “peace” in a pledge to find whoever is responsible for these acts of terrorism.

What, then, does Donald Trump do? He fires off a tweet this morning that says the following: “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a message of unity and, dare I say it, presidential leadership.

Donald Trump continues to be totally and utterly tone deaf to the role he has played in fomenting the anger that has manifested itself in this ongoing political crisis.

Federal and local authorities have now discovered 10 devices sent to addresses of presidential critics. They include former Presidents Obama and Clinton. They also include CNN, a former attorney general, a sitting U.S. congresswoman, a former vice president, a big Democratic political donor, an Oscar-winning actor … sigh!

There well could be more devices found, perhaps even before I finish writing this brief blog post.

The president, though, continues to blame others. He continues to lay it at the feet of his critics and, yes, the media.

What’s more, he stood before that campaign rally crowd in Wisconsin last night and began to poke fun — poke fun! — at what’s been happening. He boasted to laughter from the crowd that he was “trying to be nice” in his remarks, as if that suffices as a toning down of his inflammatory rhetoric.

Do you remember a year ago when Republican members of Congress were attacked on a ballfield as they practiced for a charity baseball game? One of them, House GOP whip Steve Scalise, was grievously wounded by gunfire. How did House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, react? She rallied to her colleague’s side, offering public prayers for his complete recovery.

Donald Trump cannot bring himself to respond in a way that reflects the danger of the threats being posed against his critics.

Shameful.

local news

Has the latest drought ended — for real?

1 Comment

Amarillo and Texas Panhandle residents — and millions of visitors to the region — know what this picture depicts.

Cadillac Ranch was under water earlier this month. The picture, snapped by KFDA NewsChannel 10 reporter Jami Seymore, illustrates the good news/bad news situation that is occurring throughout Texas.

I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex these days. I spent 23 years in Amarillo, visiting Cadillac Ranch many times.  I don’t recall ever seeing the Caddies under water in this fashion. Wherever he is, the late Cadillac Ranch founder Stanley Marsh 3 is smiling.

The region has been punished by drought since the beginning of time. It also has been restored by heavy rain over that same span of time. The Panhandle and much of the rest of the state well could be undergoing a restoration at this moment.

We’ve been wet in Collin County of late. I have bemoaned the rain at one level, in that it makes running errands a bit problematic on occasion. I’ll suck it up and endure right along with the rest of my fellow travelers.

As for the Panhandle, the good news quite naturally is that the moisture replenishes farm and ranch land. The dryland farmers who don’t irrigate their crops, relying exclusively on rainfall to do that for them, are ecstatic. So are the ranchers whose livestock depend on rainfall provide them feed to fatten them up for market.

Lake Meredith, the huge reservoir in Hutchinson County that provides potable water for communities throughout West Texas, also is seeing a resurgence. Remember when it sank to a depth of 26 feet about five years ago? It’s at more than 75 feet today — and it’s getting even deeper!

Is the drought over? I don’t think we should act as though it is. The Panhandle is wetter than it’s been for some time. So is the Metroplex, where communities as recently as two years ago were enacting water-use restrictions on residents. Water remains a finite resource and it’s more vital than any of the oil and natural gas we’ve been pumping out of the ground since the early 20th century.

We gripe about all the “bad news” we hear and read. I want to share this post — and the picture — to cheer you up. Are you cheerful now?

Good! Have a great day.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/05/water-getting-harder-to-reach/

national news

Mega Millions has a winner, for better or worse

I have two quick comments about the winner of the $1.6 billion Mega Millions lottery. Bear with me.

First, stay anonymous. The winner purchased the ticket at a convenience store in Simpsonville, S.C. South Carolina is one of few states that allows the winners of these games of chance to keep their identity hidden.

I strongly encourage this individual to do precisely that. I don’t need to know who he or she is. Nor does anyone else. Exposing one’s identity also exposes one to scammers, relatives real or imagined, crooks and thieves.

Protect yourself from those who would seek to take advantage of you.

Second, wait for the rush that will occur at KC Mart #7 in Simpsonville. It never fails: the retailer that peddles the winning ticket at these high-dollar games suddenly becomes the most popular such establishment among those seeking to win the next big payoff.

What they don’t realize is that the odds of the same retail outlet selling the next winner are even more astronomically remote than they were for the first one.

A fellow won a $40-something million Texas Lottery drawing some years ago in Amarillo. He bought the ticket at a convenience store. That same store had a gigantic rush for the next drawing.

It’ll happen now with the KC Mart #7. I’ll be giggling from afar.

national news

POTUS’s call for ‘unity’ falls a bit short

Well, the president had a chance to make some serious amends for his contribution to the poisonous rhetoric that has infected our political discourse.

As usual, he fell short of the mark.

Donald Trump opened a political rally in Wisconsin tonight by calling for “peace and harmony.” He decried the discovery of bombs sent to the offices of Democratic officeholders, a key activist, and the CNN offices in New York City. That’s all good. I applaud the president’s effort on that score.

But then he failed to acknowledge his own role in creating the political toxicity. He didn’t mention how he has applauded the violence of a Montana congressman on a reporter, or how he has endorsed numerous other acts of physical intimidation.

Nope. He didn’t go there.

POTUS falls short

He railed against what he said “both sides” and the media are responsible. I agree that partisans on both sides have contributed to the toxic atmosphere. The media? Well, they have done their job, even if it includes publishing or broadcasting “negative” stories about the Trump administration. The president is not having any of the negative coverage, which he calls — in a fit of unfairness — “fake news.”

He ought to retract his statement that the media are “the enemy of the people.” He knows better than that, but he says it anyway, knowing that it fires up his political base.

So, what now? We’ll find out as the president continues to campaign for Republican candidates in this year’s midterm election. He wants them to win, but at what cost? Will he continue to denigrate, disparage and dismiss his foes as unpatriotic? Will he continue to foment fear and anger?

If he means what he says about his quest for “peace and harmony,” he can deliver the goods from any podium behind which he stands while bellowing his political rhetoric.

national news

Try this out, Mr. President

These words likely won’t ever fly out of Donald J. Trump’s mouth, but I’ll suggest them anyway in advance of the president’s next political rally, set for tonight in Wisconsin.

Here goes:

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Before I get into my remarks about the upcoming midterm election, I want to speak for just a moment about the news of today.

I condemn in the strongest terms possible the despicable threats leveled against two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and their families, against former CIA director John Brennan, against CNN, Rep. Maxine Waters, and against George Soros, the Democrats’ big campaign donor. I have pledged the government will work full time to find out who sent those explosives to these individuals and to CNN and we will bring them to justice.

Yes, I know I have spoken harshly against them. Some of them have spoken against me. The rhetoric has gotten too heated. It’s time now to “unify” the country. I can start right here and now with this speech.

Yes, I want Republicans to win. I want them keep control of Congress. I will fight for them with all my being. 

The time for denigrating our foes, for sanctioning violence with rhetoric is over. We need to restore a semblance of civility.

And from this moment forward, if you start yelling “Lock her up” or “Lock him up,” or question the patriotism of our foes, I will call you out, urge you to stop doing that.

***

Do you think that will happen? I don’t either. But you know, I am no longer going to be surprised or shocked at anything this president says or does.

Sure, this is the weirdest president we’ve ever seen. His weirdness actually could produce a stunning rhetorical reversal.