Monthly Archives: March 2019

national news

Former WH lawyer makes it clear why he left

Ty Cobb’s departure from the White House counsel’s office wasn’t altogether apparent to me when he announced it.

Now, though, I get it.

Cobb has said, according to the Washington Post, that special counsel Robert Mueller is not conducting a “witch hunt.” Cobb calls Mueller an “American hero.” He is contradicting directly the wild assertions thrown around by Donald J. Trump about Mueller’s probe into The Russia Thing.

I continue to stand foursquare behind the initial reaction to Mueller’s selection as special counsel to examine allegations that Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

That reaction consisted of bipartisan praise for Mueller. Democrats and Republicans alike praised the former FBI director as a man of impeccable integrity, a brilliant mind and an intrepid spirit.

The president has taken an entirely different tack as it regards Mueller. He has hurled “witch hunt,” “hoax,” “angry Democrat” and “illegal” insults at Mueller’s team.

It now appears that Ty Cobb, once one of the president’s closest legal advisers, has staked out an opposing view.

I believe Cobb’s view of Mueller.

I also want to point out that Cobb doesn’t believe Mueller is going to find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Still, the special counsel appears to be the “class act,” as Cobb has called his friend. Trump’s act, however, is quite the opposite.

environmental news, International news, national news, political news

One-note samba won’t cut it on campaign trail

I’ll give Washington Gov. Jay Inslee plenty of credit for candor.

He announced his candidacy the other day for president of the United States declaring right up front, out loud and for all the world to see and hear that he’s running on one issue only: climate change and the peril it poses for the world’s most powerful nation.

Fine. What about the rest of the job, governor? What about, oh, let’s see: fighting terrorism, creating jobs, fiscal responsibility, dealing with cybersecurity, border security? There are a whole lot of other issues, too.

Inslee wants to make climate change the strongest plank in his platform on which to seek the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2020.

I don’t dispute the urgency he is placing on the matter. I do dispute whether it’s enough all by itself to commend him for nomination and election.

Just as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is running on economic inequality, which kind of mirrors Issue No. 1 for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Inslee is staking his candidacy on a single issue.

We have Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar in the hunt already. Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado is in. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is, too. I know I’m missing someone. There’s too many of ’em to keep up.

The Democratic Party field has reached a dozen candidates so far. There will be more. Many more, or so it appears. Texan Beto O’Rourke appears to be set to go. Former Vice President Joe Biden is letting it slip out that his family is all in on his running for president.

They all need to demonstrate a well-rounded, well-considered and well-tested competence on an array of domestic and foreign policy issues. Climate change is a big one. So is income inequality.

Spare me, though, the one-note samba. I tend to tire of hearing the same thing coming out of candidates’ mouths.

We’ve already elected an incompetent business mogul/boob to the nation’s highest office. We don’t need to train another president on the vast complexities of the nation’s highest office.

local news, media news

Time of My Life, Part 26: They kept me humble

I operated under a number of principles during more than 30 years in daily print journalism. I always sought to be fair; accuracy was critical.

I also never took myself more seriously than I took my craft.

The readers of the newspapers where I worked all served as great equalizers. I started my newspaper reporting career full time in 1977 at the Oregon City (Ore.) Enterprise-Courier; I gravitated in 1984 to the Beaumont Enterprise in Texas; and then in 1995 I moved on to the Amarillo Globe-News.

All along the way I contended with readers who shared a common quality. They generally lived in the communities we covered. Thus, they had skin in the game; they had vested interests in their cities and towns.

So if I wrote something with which they disagreed and they took the time to call me to discuss their disagreements I tended to take them seriously.

I tried to learn something about the communities where I worked. Readers often were great teachers. They would scold me. They would chide me. They mostly were respectful when they disagreed with whatever I wrote, how I reported a story or offered an opinion on an issue the newspaper had covered on its news pages.

I always sought to return the respect when they called.

To be sure, not everyone fit that description. More than few of them over all those years were visibly, viscerally angry when they called to complain. I tried to maintain a civil tongue when responding to them. I’ll be candid, though, in admitting that at times my temper flared.

I usually didn’t mind someone challenging the facts I would present in a news story, or in an editorial, or in a column. I did mind individuals who would challenge my motives, or ascribe nefarious intent where none existed.

And every once in a great while I would a reader challenge my patriotism and even my religious faith. That’s where I drew the line.

However, over the span of time I pursued the craft I loved from the moment I began studying it in college I sought to maintain a level of perspective. I took my job seriously. I always sought to remember that all human beings are flawed.

It kept me humble.

national news

Trump performance at CPAC is utterly jaw-dropping

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If you have the time — and arguably a stomach strong enough to withstand it — you need to take a couple of hours to watch the video attached to this blog post.

It is Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump’s full speech delivered this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

This record-setting tirade is a case study in presidential idiocy. It sets the stage for the kind of campaign we can expect from the 45th president of the United States if he decides to run for re-election in 2020.

I say “if” because I am not yet totally convinced he’s in. Trump probably is going to run. But . . . one never can presume anything as it relates to the president.

But this CPAC soliloquy is utterly jaw-dropping in the nonsense that poured out of POTUS’s mouth. The Washington Post counted more than 100 outright lies that came from Trump in his two-hour tirade.

The histrionics, the hyperbole, the hysteria is utterly, astonishingly, and unbelievably bizarre in the extreme.

I am forced to ask yet again: What in the name of all that is dignified did we get when this individual managed to win enough electoral votes to become the president of the United States of America?

I actually get it. This individual speaks for those who “think” as he does. He echoes their cynicism and calls it “populism.”

Unbelievable!

media news

An abuse of presidential power?

I want to share a brief item posted on Facebook by Robert Reich, a fiery critic of Donald J. Trump. Reich writes:

Another impeachable offense. Trump personally tried to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner as retribution for CNN’s coverage of him, according to a new report. In meetings with his advisors, he demanded that the Department of Justice’s antitrust division to stop the merger. The move would have also been a huge victory for Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News and viewed the AT&T-Time Warner as a threat to his business.

If these reports turn out to be true, this would be a clear violation of the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of the press — conspiring to block a merger for the sole purpose of limiting press coverage. We must not become inured to this unconstitutional behavior.

What do we make of that? Reich, a former labor secretary during the Clinton administration, believes the president of the United States has interceded in direct violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

We’ve been hearing a lot in recent days and weeks about “conspiracy to obstruct justice,” about “alleged collusion with Russian operatives” who attacked our electoral system.

We now might start hearing more chatter about “abuse of presidential power.”

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has launched an expansive investigation into an array of questions regarding Donald Trump’s conduct as president of the United States.

The committee’s agenda is overflowing.

national news

Trump asserts Democrats ‘hate’ this country

Donald John Trump provided plenty of commentary material during his record-setting soliloquy in front of the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend.

Let’s look briefly at this tidbit: He said that many in Congress — namely Democrats — “hate this country.”

There you go. That is an example of the height — or the depth — of cynicism rarely, if ever, heard from the president of the United States.

Trump’s foes “hate” the country they serve. They “hate” what the country stands for. They “hate” the nation’s values.

They take the same oath that the president takes. They pledge to defend the U.S. Constitution and to protect the nation against our enemies. They swear allegiance to the United States of America, just like Trump did.

“Hate” is such an ugly four-letter word. Don’t you think?

When it flies out of the mouth of the president of the United States and is aimed at his foes, then it falls into the category of dangerous rhetoric. 

This is Trump at his worst. He is talking only to his base. He doesn’t give a sh** about the rest of the country’s citizens, its voters. The president is relying on his base to shore up his faltering status as the nation’s head of state/commander in chief.

The CPAC crowd gave him plenty of whoops and hollers as he railed on and on for 122 minutes, setting a personal record for longwinded speechmaking. They don’t care about the cynicism, let alone the lies that continue to spew forth from POTUS’s pie hole.

Then he says his opponents “hate” the United States. The CPAC faithful cheered.

So help me, this guy is a disgrace to his high office.

Sports news

What’s up with the fast-food tributes at the White House?

Hey, what’s going on at the White House?

When the Clemson University Tigers came to “our house” to meet with the president, he served the nation’s top collegiate football team fast-food offerings. Why? Because the government was partially shut down and Donald Trump said he lacked the staff to prepare a sumptuous meal for the NCAA gridiron champs.

The president paid for the spread laid out for the Clemson Tigers.

OK, now we have the North Dakota State Bison — winners of Division I FCS football title — coming to the White House. What does the president do for them? He feeds ’em Chick-Fil-A and McDonald’s.

The rationale this time, he says, is to promote U.S. businesses.

The government is up and running. The White House kitchen is fully staffed. However, Donald Trump wants to accentuate his effort to “put America first” by serving fast food.

Very . . . strange.

media news

Off to the races with public radio station KETR-FM

Well, we have a launch of a new project involving, um . . .  me.

KETR-FM has posted my first essay for its website. You can read it here.

I chose to comment on the Texas teacher pay increase that’s now under consideration in the Texas Legislature. The Senate is poised to approve a $5,000 annual raise for public school teachers; senators will send it to the House. If the House approves it, the issue goes to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his expected signature.

I am thrilled to be part of this new endeavor. My association now is with Texas A&M University/Commerce and its radio station, which is affiliated with National Public Radio.

It’s a whole new gig for me. I want to give thanks to KETR news director Mark Haslett for giving me a chance to offer some perspective through the radio station.

I feel as though I’ve been given a fresh chance to pursue an aspect of a craft that gave me many years of enjoyment.

national news

Donald J. Trump: political trailblazer

Donald John Trump is blazing a trail as president of the United States that well might establish a new benchmark that grabs the attention of future presidents.

The Washington Post has been keeping tabs on the number of lies that Trump has told since he took office in January 2017.

Trump has passed the 9,000 mark in the number of false or “misleading” statements, according to the Post. What’s more, he is on pace already to exceed the lying rate he set in the first two years of his presidency, the Post reports.

The Post reports: “The President averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. He hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year. So far in 2019, he’s averaging nearly 22 claims a day.”

Hey, man! That is awesome.

Trump brags about his big numbers: biggest crowd in history at his inaugural; biggest tax cut in history, he’s done more in his first two years than any president in U.S. history; more jobs created than ever.

Now, though, Trump has provided demonstrable evidence that his lying numbers are No. 1 in the history of the high office he holds.

Nice going, Mr. President.

International news

Trump blames Cohen hearing for failed N. Korea talks? Huh?

This one doesn’t compute, Mr. President.

You travel to Hanoi to meet with your new BFF, North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, expecting to score some kind of monumental “deal” to persuade Kim to do away with his nuclear weapons.

The deal making falls through. You walk away. I get why you did it, since you couldn’t get the deal you wanted from Kim.

Then you blame the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on Michael Cohen, who spent the day calling you a racist, cheating con man. He called you a shmuck, Mr. President. Many of us agree with your former friend/confidant/fixer.

His testimony didn’t undermine your talks with Kim Jong Un, Mr. President. He was talking about matters far removed from issue at hand in Hanoi.

So, why are you laying blame at the feet of Democrats?

I heard your statement about criticizing the president while he — I mean, you — are overseas negotiating with an overfed tyrant who kills his own people through starvation, torture and assorted methods of execution.

The blame for the failed summit rests with you and Kim Jong Un. Not on Democrats, not on Cohen, not on the brutal storm that is ravaging the middle of the country.

Take responsibility for the times you fall short, Mr. President. Stop looking to lay the blame at the feet of others.

For once!