Monthly Archives: October 2018

local news

At $1.6 billion, I should be all over this game … but I’m not

I remain adamantly opposed to games of chance, even those that offer up prizes totaling $1.6 billion, which the Mega Millions lottery is offering at this moment.

In the early 1990s, when Texas was discussing whether to allow a lottery, I wrote editorials from my post at the Beaumont Enterprise opposing it. The state voted — I think it was in 1991 — to approve the lottery in a statewide election; the approval was overwhelming. So much for the “power of the press.”

I have played the Texas Lottery exactly twice. The first time, I purchased a $1 ticket at a Beaumont convenience store and won $3.

Woo hoo! I was $2 to the good.

I played again the next week. I plunked down another buck. I came up empty. That’s when I quit. I was still $1 on the plus side.

The lottery, the Mega Millions, the Power Ball games have no appeal to me. Honest! They don’t.

I know a few friends who’ve squandered a lot of their life savings trying to win “the big one.” Yes, I know a few who’ve done well. The most astonishing story involves a young man with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News. He went to Lubbock one day, purchased a ticket — and walked away with a million bucks.

I was told by another friend that this fellow hardly ever plays the game. He just thought he’d lay down a few bucks. And then? Boom!

That kind of dumb luck is foreign to me.

Thus, I won’t get sucked into this game. Not even for a smooth billion-six.

Good luck to whoever wins. You’ll need it. Bigly.

national news

Election Day deserves to be a national holiday

We’re going to vote in a few days for all the members of the U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate. Each state will have elections, too, to select governors, assorted statewide officeholders, on down to the legislative and county level.

I’ve kicked this idea around in my noggin, but I now believe we need to make Election Day a national holiday. Give our citizens the day off from work. Allow them to spend the day doing whatever they do on their days off, but also allow them to perform our society’s most essential form of political expression.

I don’t believe we need to move Election Day; it should remain on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. I don’t want it moved to the first Monday, creating yet another three-day weekend for citizens to spend out of town and enticing them to stay away on Monday, when they should be voting.

Keeping it on Tuesday sandwiches Election Day between two working/school days. It helps ensure citizens are at home for this big event.

We bemoan the lack of voter turnout. Americans who don’t vote can’t get away for a number of reasons. Their jobs comprise part of the rationale for non-voting American citizens. “My job keeps me from going to the polls,” they might say. A national holiday fixes that problem. Hey, we have declared national holidays to honor our presidents, Christopher Columbus, our veterans, those who have died in battle, the creation of our nation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., working men and women. These all are noble causes and worthy of honor.

Why isn’t the election of our national, state and local leaders worthy as well?

I believe it is. We should set that day aside every two years — for the midterm and for the presidential elections — to give Americans plenty of time during the day to perform this simple, but essential task of citizenship.

political news

Is Texas pushing back against voter apathy?

I want to salute what I hope is happening in real time all across Texas.

Reports are pouring in that early-voting totals are smashing records in large counties and small counties. Harris County’s early-vote totals are more than three times than what they were in 2014, the year of the previous midterm election. Dallas County’s early-vote count is shattering records, too. I haven’t heard what’s happening in Collin County, where I live — but I’ll presume that my neighbors are turning out, too.

Keep the votes coming

Regardless of the outcome of the midterm election, this is a good sign for the state if the early voting results portend a huge spike in the actual total turnout.

I’m going to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. So this isn’t about me. It’s about so many other Texans who seem intent on reversing the state’s dubious distinction of producing time and again one of the country’s worst vote-turnout totals.

Texans like to boast about the bigness of everything here. Yep, the state is huge. It covers roughly 268,000 square miles. It’s more than 800 miles from Orange to El Paso, and from Dalhart to McAllen. The state is home to about 27 million residents. Its economy is rated among the top 15 national economies in the world.

If only the state could produce large voter turnout totals that merit such boastfulness. It’s usually pitiful. This year’s midterm election? Maybe not.

I have hope that the turnout will be large and that the early turnout totals aren’t a sign of just more Texans voting early, leaving Election Day voting to the scant remainder of the rest of the voting public.

It’s the idealist in me.

national news

Cruz displays phony ‘Texas tough’ profile

Ted Cruz calls himself “tough as Texas.” Why, then, did the Republican U.S. senator wrap his arms around Donald J. Trump, praise the man who once denigrated the senator’s wife and implied that his father had a hand in committing the crime of the 20th century, the assassination of President Kennedy?

All that took place Monday at the Toyota Center arena in Houston, where the president whipped up the cheering crowd and urged them to vote for Cruz, who is fighting for re-election against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

I wanted to hurl when I saw it.

Cruz’s Texas toughness would have been more sincere had he told the president to stay the hell away, that he didn’t want or need his support and that he couldn’t forgive him for denigrating his wife and suggesting that his father — who Trump said was seen with Lee Harvey Oswald — might have been complicit in JFK’s murder.

No, instead Cruz put on the façade of phony fealty to Trump, who said he and Cruz had made up, that all was forgiven, that he really didn’t mean that Cruz was the biggest liar in the Senate — that the nickname “Lyin’ Ted” was being replaced by “Beautiful Ted” and “Texan Ted.”

Tough as Texas? Give me a break.

It turns out — at least the way I see it — that Cruz is every bit as much of the “sniveling coward” that he called Donald Trump when the men were competing for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

You are free to disagree if you wish. I just view political toughness a whole lot differently than what was on display in Houston.

political news, State news

That did it: Valdez has lost me

I know this isn’t exactly a scoop, that it’s been out there for a bit. I guess I’m a little slow on the uptake but what the heck. Better to know it now than after an election.

Democratic candidate for Texas governor Lupe Valdez will not get my vote in two weeks. I am not yet sure whether Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will get it; I’m inclined to vote for the incumbent, if only to hope that he is willing to reel in a wacky lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who wants to discriminate against transgender individuals by forcing a Bathroom Bill down our throats.

The Beaumont Enterprise, where I used to work for nearly 11 years before we moved to the Panhandle, endorsed Abbott’s re-election today. It noted the following about Valdez, the former Dallas County sheriff: The Democratic candidate for governor, Lupe Valdez, disqualified herself from any serious consideration for this job when it was revealed that she was delinquent on $12,000 in 2017 taxes on seven properties is Dallas and Ellis counties. If candidates for public office don’t pay their tax bills, it’s hard to have confidence in them handling the tax revenues of other people. If nothing else, Valdez should have understood how embarrassing this would be in political terms and taken care of her obligations. The fact that she did not shows she is not ready for the highest job in state government.

That’s a two-fer. Failure to pay taxes and failure to understand the blowback she would get once that failure became known.

I had hoped that Valdez would have done better as a major-party candidate for governor. Well, nice try, sheriff.

If she cannot pay her own tax bills, Texans have no reason to trust her with our money.

political news

Big first day of early voting might portend an upset

They’re all agog in Harris County over the size of the first day of early voting in Texas’s most populous county.

The early vote totals have smashed to smithereens the previous record, according to reports from down yonder.

Democratic partisans believe the interest bodes well for their slate of candidates, led by U.S. Senate challenger Beto O’Rourke, who’s running against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.

Republicans, meanwhile, say, “Not so fast. We’ve got some mojo building, too, for our guy and our slate of candidates.”

Well, I hope it’s the Democrats’ who have reason to cheer the big turnout. My stated preference for O’Rourke to shoot down the Cruz Missile is well-known to readers of this blog. I am cautious, though, about ascribing too much value into the big early vote totals.

Why? My concern is that the early vote totals might not reflect a huge jump in total vote, that Texans are trading in their Election Day vote for an early one.

But … having said that, my hope springs eternal.

My hope is that the big-time spike in early voting activity signals a sea change, that Texans finally might be getting off their duffs and casting ballots in a highly critical midterm election.

We don’t do too well usually when it comes to voting, particularly when it’s merely for members of Congress. This one does feel different.

Let’s hope the difference is mirrored in the number of Texans who cast their ballots.

I’m going to wait until Election Day, per my usual practice.

See you at the polls then.

International news

Open borders? Really?

When I hear and read the term “open borders,” I conjure up a definition of, well, totally open borders.

They are borders without guards carrying weapons, without any surveillance, without any restrictions for those seeking to cross them.

Yet the political climate has been poisoned by rhetoric that alleges Democrats across our country favor “open borders.” The Republican demagogue in chief, Donald Trump, is leading the chants against Democratic Party loyalists, contending they favor no restrictions on immigration.

So help me, I haven’t heard a serious politician say anything approaching what Trump and other demagogues are suggesting. They aren’t saying that we take down the Border Patrol stations, letting anyone walk into this country unrestricted.

What these so-called “open border” proponents are saying is they don’t want to build a wall along our nation’s 2,000-mile southern border. They contend it is too expensive, too unwieldy, too fraught with legal difficulty as the government seeks to condemn private land.

They aren’t favoring “open borders.” I am one who opposes the wall but supports strengthening border security using lots measures available to us: more Border Patrol personnel, more drone aircraft, greater surveillance technology, more support for state and local law enforcement agencies, rapid deportation policies.

Open borders? That’s the stuff of demagogues.

national news, Uncategorized

Civility needs a boost after hours

I have taken my share of shots at U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the years. I dislike the Republican’s obstructionism, his policies, the way he runs the Senate, his partisanship … whatever.

However, he did not deserve to be harangued, harassed and hassled while he was dining with his wife in a Louisville, Ky., restaurant.

In the name of political civility, why cannot we let these public officials — even those in leadership positions — enjoy some private time with their loved ones?

McConnell was called a “traitor.” Other diners clapped. Yet another bystander reportedly grabbed the senator’s to-go box and dumped its contents on the sidewalk.

This kind of thing has been happening of late. I find it unacceptable.

Keep it civil

Look, I’ve been railing against the lack of civility in our public discourse. This kind of activity against congressional leaders — mostly against Republican leaders — runs totally counter to those of us out here who bemoan this uncivil behavior.

I will post this commentary on my blog, which then will appear on social media platforms. Some friends of mine — notably those on the left/progressive side — are going to take umbrage at my comments.

They might say that “this is war” in the current public political debate. To which I’ll respond: No … it isn’t “war”; those of us who’ve been to war know the difference between the real thing and a political disagreement.

Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, did not deserve to be treated so shabbily. If we are going to lament the lack of civility in our current political climate, then many of us need to start behaving in a manner that promotes it.

I will keep calling for a more civil discussion for as long as I am able. What happened to Sen. McConnell and his wife is counterproductive in the extreme.

Those who want change in Washington can act in a different manner. They can vote.

International news, national news

Hey, didn’t we win the Cold War?

I always thought the United States and its allies won the Cold War, that we forced the Soviet Union to spend beyond its means on a military machine, bankrupting the country.

The USSR collapsed under its own weight. The Reagan administration sought prior to its demise to negotiate a deal to limit the production of nuclear weapons.

Four presidents came and went, the treaty was kept in place. The United States and Russia whittled their respective nuclear arsenals.

Now comes Donald Trump to assert that the Russians haven’t been faithful to the treaty. So he’s going to trash it. Then he announces a proposed buildup of nuclear weapons. The Russians counter with a threat to rebuild their own nuclear arsenal in response to the U.S. threat.

“Russia has violated the agreement,” Trump said. So he’s taking action.

It’s a dangerous course upon which the president is embarking. Instead of deploying diplomats and weapons inspectors to determine the extent to which Russia “violated” any agreement, Trump wants to flex our nation’s military muscles.

I know this seems to piddle all over the notion that the president is somehow beholden to Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin. To the extent that he’s holding Russia accountable for its actions in this context, I applaud the president’s rhetorical aggressiveness; if only he would use the same approach to dealing with Russian attack on our 2016 presidential election.

But are we now going to restart the arms race that produced a policy called Mutually Assured Destruction?

It’s simply a MAD course to follow.

national news, political news

‘Middle Easterners’ in the caravan mix?

Donald J. “Fearmonger in Chief” Trump is at it again.

He said the “caravan” of refugees heading for our nation’s southern border contains “criminals” and “unknown Middle Easterners.” Does the president have any evidence of it?

Of course not! He never produces evidence of anything when he makes these bellicose assertions. It makes his crowds cheer. It fires him up. He speaks the language that his “base” understands and to which it is drawn.

The unknown Middle East component, of course, harkens back to 9/11 and the view being promoted by those on the far right that the Middle East is populated by millions of Muslims who “hate America” and will do whatever they can to do harm to Americans.

So now, according to Trump, they’re slipping into the crowd of Latin American refugees and are heading toward our soft underbelly.

I wish I had an answer to what we should do when that “caravan” arrives along our Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California borders. I don’t.

I do not believe the president is helping quell the fear of many Americans by suggesting — without attribution — the notion that the refugees are full of criminals and “Middle Easterners.”

No. Donald Trump is stoking the fear. That’s what he does. It is how he rolls.