Monthly Archives: March 2019

local news

Hard to let go of those Panhandle issues

My wife and I are settled nicely now in Collin County, Texas. We are purchasing a new home and our beloved puppy, Toby, is running himself ragged in his new back yard.

But the blog keeps gravitating back to the community we left after living there for 23 years.

Amarillo, Texas, is the place we called “home” for the longest stretch of our married life together. Indeed, we spent roughly half of our life there. I had a great job, and my wife also found solid gainful employment during our years there.

It is hard for me to give up on commenting on issues that still matter to me. Downtown Amarillo’s rebirth still has my attention. So does the incessant street and highway construction. The same can be said of the local political leadership comprising individuals I got to know quite well during my time as a journalist.

With that, I guess I will declare that High Plains Blogger will continue to comment on Amarillo and the rest of the Texas Panhandle.

I feel I developed sufficient familiarity with the issues that are driving Amarillo to enable me to keep abreast of what is happening there even as we pursue our retired life together in Princeton. We surely intend to continue focusing our attention on our granddaughter, who — after all — is the reason we uprooted ourselves from our Amarillo home and relocated to the Metroplex.

Nor will I fail to take note of the places we intend to visit as we continue our travels throughout North America. It’s a huge world out there and I want to share what we find along our journey.

Still, I keep hearing the call to comment on a community I got to know pretty well. So, I will answer that call when it moves me.

It’s impossible to say “farewell.”

political news

Don’t mess with Electoral College

I am a blue voter who lives in a red state. I tilt toward Democratic candidates for president while residing in heavily Republican Texas.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I want to redeclare my view that efforts to circumvent the Electoral College are counterproductive. They shouldn’t go forward.

However, it appears that Democrats in states that lean blue are intent on monkeying around with the Electoral College with legislation that bypasses the system codified in the U.S. Constitution by the nation’s founders.

They want their states to cast their electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote. It’s part of what is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Is the nation’s electoral system in peril of breaking down? I don’t believe that is the case.

We have had 59 presidenti

al elections in this country since its founding. Only five times has the candidate with fewer votes been elected president.

However, what has alarmed those who want to overhaul the electoral system insist that such a trend is in danger of escalating. They point out that it’s happened twice just since 2000! George W. Bush was elected that year despite getting about a half-million fewer votes than Al Gore. Then in 2016 Donald Trump was elected with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It fascinates me to know that the move to tinker with the Electoral College is coming from aggrieved Democrats, given that the 2000 and 2016 elections went to the Republican nominee for president.

We are witnessing what I believe is a knee-jerk reaction to an overblown issue. It kind of reminds of me how Republicans in Congress pushed for enactment of the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two elected terms; they did so after Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won election to four consecutive terms as president.

Let me reiterate an essential point. If we’re going to change the electoral system, then eliminate the Electoral College. It is an absurd notion to tweak and tug at the edges of the system.

I happen to still believe in the Electoral College system of choosing our president. I endorse the idea that it helps spread the power among more states, giving less-populated states a stronger voice in choosing our head of state.

If we’re going to mess with the Electoral College, then go all the way.

Or else leave it the hell alone!

International news

Your opinion most certainly matters, Mr. Bolton

Uh, John Bolton? Hello?

I have taken in recent months to addressing the president directly with my blog posts. I’ll direct these remarks to you.

You say your opinion “doesn’t matter.” Hey, you’re the friggin’ national security adviser. It most certainly does matter.

Donald Trump gave North Korean dictator/tyrant Kim Jong Un a pass on what he knew about Otto Warmbier’s imprisonment and then his death. His statement that he takes Kim “at his word” that he knew nothing about it is absurd on its face.

I would hope that you know better as the national security adviser.

You’re known as a hardliner. You’re a tough guy. Tough on Iran. Tough on the United Nations. Tough on the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

You’re also the third national security adviser to work for this president. He burned through Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster quickly. Then he brought you aboard, albeit over the objection of many of us out here. I admit to being one of those skeptics.

But you’re in the hot seat now. You have been given the responsibility of providing the commander in chief with the best national security advice he can get. If only he’d listen.

I happen to believe that your word is as valuable as any that Donald Trump is going to receive as he considers what to do about this and that threat to our national security.

Kim Jong Un is a bizarre tyrant whose hand is in every aspect of government in the country he rules with untold cruelty.

I get that you don’t want to “contradict” the president. You surely want to keep your job. It’s a big job, indeed, Mr. Bolton.

I’m just going to ask you to give Donald Trump the candid advice he needs to hear. One thing you ought to tell him is this:

“Uh, Mr. President. Don’t take Kim Jong Un’s word on anything. And for crying out loud, stop saying out loud that you ‘like’ this murderous tyrant. You cannot possibly ‘like’ an overfed tyrant who is allowing the people he rules to starve to death.”

national news

Impeachment fanatics need a serious gut check

Michael Cohen’s testimony this past week in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee has ignited talk of impeachment.

Many on the far left of the Democratic Party are ready to file articles of impeachment yesterday against Donald John Trump, the Republican president of the United States of America. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer/confidant/friend/fixer offered up a mountain of circumstantial evidence of criminality involving the president.

That’s enough for many on the far left.

Other Democrats, the more seasoned among them, are sounding a warning.

Not so fast. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those who argue that impeachment is too divisive an issue to hurtle head first into doing. She is counseling the impeachment fanatics within her caucus to wait a while longer. We’ve got this matter involving special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude.

Of course, Republicans are willing to talk about impeachment. They’re using it as a cudgel to batter their Democratic foes. Trump himself is showing a decided willingness to toss out the “I” word whenever he stands before his adoring loyalists. He recognizes the divisive nature of any action to remove him from office.

I am not yet totally convinced the president deserves impeachment. I want to wait for Mueller to finish his work. I want the results he has compiled to be made available to the public. I want a complete accounting of what he found, what he learned, what he has determined to be the truth.

I believe that’s what I am hearing from seasoned Democratic politicians. They have been down this impeachment road before. Many of them sat in the front row when Republicans yammered for the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998. They succeeded. The House impeached the president, who then stood trial in the Senate, which then acquitted the president of the charges brought against him by the House.

Speaker Pelosi wants no part of a repeat of that fiasco.

The Democratic young guns need to listen to their partisan elders. Hold on. Wait for Robert Mueller. Consume what he offers. Then decide.

national news

Time for Schiff and others to put up ‘direct evidence’

U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said today he has seen “direct evidence” that the Donald Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians who sought to intervene in our 2016 presidential election.

Hmm. Direct evidence. Well, I believe there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence piling up all around the president and his campaign operatives.

The California Democratic chairman, though, keeps teasing us with sound bites alluding to direct evidence that the Trump team worked hand in glove with Russian goons who sought to bring dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in 2016.

I am still awaiting special counsel Robert Mueller to deliver his report. It needs to be made public. Mueller’s lengthy and thorough investigation needs lay out clear evidence. I no longer want to hear from Schiff who makes statements about direct evidence but then cannot divulge the details of how he knows about such matters.

All this rhetorical teasing does is give Donald Trump ammo to fire back at his political foes.

local news

Amarillo still ‘Matters’ to this group

A political action group formed two years ago to help elect a slate of candidates to the Amarillo City Council is back at it.

Amarillo Matters, which comprises some well-funded, well-known and successful business and civic leaders, is working to re-elect the council members it helped elect in 2017. They’re all running for re-election this year.

What strikes me as strange — even from my now-distant vantage point — is that Amarillo Matters is being demonized by challengers to the incumbents. For what remains a mystery to me.

I’ve seen the Amarillo Matters website, read its profile, looked at its mission statement. It says it works to develop “positive opportunities” for the city. It vows to be free of conflicts of interest. Amarillo Matters says it believes in “limited government.”

There’s more to the website explaining this group. You can see it here.

It’s a high-minded group with noble goals, ambitions and causes.

The way I view the city now that I no longer live there is that Amarillo has continued nicely on its upward trajectory during the past two years. Downtown continues its revival; the city streets are under significant repair and renovation; the state is tearing the daylights out of Interstates 40 and 27, but that, too, shall pass; Amarillo economic development gurus have gone all in — with significant amounts of public money — on Texas Tech’s plans to build a school of veterinary medicine in Amarillo.

I have to ask: Is this all bad? Is this a reason to toss aside the city’s leadership?

It’s not that everything is peachy in Amarillo. Sure, there are problems. What American city doesn’t have them? The city needs to devote more money and attention to long-neglected neighborhoods, but I hear that the city is aiming to do precisely that.

I keep hearing whispers about feather-bedding, favoritism and assorted accusations of malfeasance. So help me it sounds like sour grapes from those who aren’t deriving some sort of direct financial benefit from all the good that is occurring in the city.

This economic system of ours means that individuals benefit as well as the community at large. I see Amarillo Matters as the positive influence it purports to be. Thus, I do not grasp the basis for the negativity coming from those who seek further “change” in the direction the city has taken.

From my perspective, the city is doing just fine.

political news

What a ‘horse race’ this is going to become

Good grief, man! I thought the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary campaign would be one for the books.

I suppose it was, given who won that party’s presidential nomination and then was elected president of the United States.

But this one? Wow! The upcoming Democratic Party primary field figures to eclipse by a good bit the size of the GOP field four years ago.

Seventeen Republicans fought it out for the right to succeed Barack Obama as president in 2016. The upcoming election campaign already features 10 or 11 announced Democratic candidates and we’re nowhere near finished seeing the entire field filled out.

How do you suppose the media will cover this thundering herd of candidates looking to succeed Donald Trump?

They’re already in full horse-race mode. Former Vice President Joe Biden is thought to be the frontrunner — and he is one of those who has not yet announced whether he’s going to run for POTUS in 2020. It looks like he’s going to do it.

The horse race aspect of the media coverage is the kind of thing that drives me a nuts. I get batty listening to and reading reports of who’s up, who’s down, who’s an up-and-comer, who’s the has-been.

I hope to hear more issues discussion this year than we’ve experienced over the past several election cycles.

Donald Trump likes to boast about crowd size, TV ratings and the scope of his intelligence. What will Democrats offer in response? I hope whoever emerges from the huge initial field will talk about how they intend to repair the damage that Donald Trump has done to the presidency — not to mention to the country.

Donald Trump

How does the Christian ‘base’ like POTUS’s potty mouth?

I’m scratching my head — and not because it itches.

I am wondering something about Donald Trump’s two-hour tirade today at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting.

He stood before the faithful and laid out a profanity-laced harangue against the media, Democrats, special counsel Robert Mueller, socialists.

The word “sh**” and certain variations of it were on full display today.

My wonderment? A big part of the president’s “base” includes the evangelical Christian movement. They like Trump’s judicial appointments; they support his statements about prayer in school; they adhere to his newly found pro-life stance on abortion. They don’t mind that he mocks individuals’ speech, such as what he did today in mimicking former AG Jeff Sessions’ Southern drawl.

They give him a pass on his serial philandering on all three of his wives. They say every person is entitled to God’s grace.

But wait. Do they really like a president who spews filthy language in public? Is that the tone and tenor of a Godly man?

Trump goes wild at CPAC

Please don’t remind me that other presidents have salted their language. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all were known to utter profanity in private. Heck, “W” did so in my presence, to me, about five years before he was elected president.

But I don’t ever remember any of those men lacing their language with the profanity that flies out of Trump’s pie hole during public speeches, such as what he did today.

I don’t get it.

Is that how he “tells it like it is”?

national news

House doesn’t need a criminal charge to impeach, however . . .

Donald J. Trump put his cheesy side on full display at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting today. He hugged Old Glory as he walked onto the stage before delivering a two-hour harangue filled with four-letter words and assorted demagogic statements about his foes.

OK, I say all that as a predicate for what I want to say next.

It is that Michael Cohen’s testimony this week before the House Oversight and Reform Committee opened the door to possible criminal charges being brought against the president of the United States. The president’s former lawyer/confidant dropped the names of individuals who might know a lot about Trump’s financial dealings and whether they involve possible criminality.

Why is that a big deal?

Let’s revisit an earlier inquiry into whether to impeach a president. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Nixon on obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges related to the Watergate scandal.

I want to note that the committee did not impeach the president on the basis of any criminal charges. None had been brought. President Nixon did not break any laws before the House panel approved the articles of impeachment.

Republican lawmakers scurried to the White House and informed the president that he had no support in the Senate, where he would stand trial once the full House impeached him.

Nixon quit the presidency.

Twenty-five years later, the House of Representatives impeached President Clinton largely on the basis of a single criminal charge: perjury. The president lied to a grand jury that asked him about his relationship with the White House intern.

Donald Trump’s troubles appear to eclipse those that ensnared Clinton in an impeachment and a Senate trial (where he was acquitted). As for the Nixon impeachment inquiry, I just want to reiterate that the president was not charged with a criminal act.

This is my way of saying that Donald Trump might be wading into some mighty deep doo-doo.

No amount of flag-hugging is likely to do him any good.

Donald Trump, International news

How in the world can POTUS ‘like’ a murderous tyrant?

Donald Trump’s best friends among the ranks of world leaders seem to have something in common. They’re tyrants, strongmen, autocrats, dictators . . . any and/or all of the above.

His latest demonstration of such were his statements about how much he likes North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un. It begs the critical question: How is it that the president of the United States of America “like” someone such as Kim Jong Un.

For the record, Kim Jong Un is starving his people while he lives in relative opulence; Kim has murdered members of his own family because they disagree with his policies; he terrorizes his subjects mercilessly; he threatens South Korea with nuclear annihilation.

Then he lied about not knowing about the imprisonment of an American college student, Otto Warmbier, who then was relegated to a vegetative state and released; Warmbier died as a result of his captivity.

Trump said he believes Kim’s denial that he was aware of Warmbier’s mistreatment.

He groveled at Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who denied attacking our electoral system in 2016. Trump swallowed Putin’s denial over the assessment of the nation’s intelligence community that determined the Russians did attack us in 2016.

When a U.S. resident journalist was killed in Turkey by Saudi agents, Trump accepted the denial that Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump’s latest display of infatuation with a tyrant — Kim Jong Un — reveals a dangerous trend. The president of the United States — who occupies the most powerful office on Earth — acts with astonishing weakness when he takes the word of a killer.