Monthly Archives: March 2019

national news

Hoping the end of probe would . . . be the end!

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Silly me.

I had this naïve thought that Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general into whether Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians would be the end of the story.

The special counsel would wrap up his findings, hand them to AG William Barr, who then would tell the public what Mueller had found out. We’d all know — for better or for worse — what went down during the 2016 presidential election.

Then this happened: Mueller essentially cleared Trump and his team of conspiring to collude with Russians who interfered with our election; but then he remained silent on whether Trump obstructed justice by seeking to block any further examination into top aides.

What’s more, Barr issued a four-page “summary” of Mueller’s findings. Not everyone believes Barr’s assessment of what Mueller determined. They contend that Barr is a Trump toadie, handpicked by the president to run interference for him.

Now we’re waiting on the full report from Barr, who promises “transparency.” I am forced to ask: How much of it is he going to show us?

I tend to trust William Barr. I also tend to believe him when he says he will let Americans see as much of Mueller’s findings as he can under the law. I do not need to know the deepest national secrets. All any of us ought to see is the body of evidence that Mueller had collected and from which he drew his conclusions.

Of course, I do have questions now about why Mueller would remain silent on the obstruction of justice matter. Barr said Mueller determined that even though he lacked credible evidence of obstruction, he didn’t “exonerate” the president; Trump, quite expectedly, calls it all a “total exoneration,” which is yet another Trump lie.

I’m going to pose another question: If we presume the worst, that Barr withholds parts of Mueller’s report that might be damaging to the president, would the special counsel be willing to blow the whistle on what the AG is hiding from public view?

Oh, how I want to know the whole truth. My hope of knowing it upon the end of Robert Mueller’s probe has been quashed.

education news

Welcome to the fire pit, AISD’s new superintendent

Amarillo’s public school board has done it, hiring Doug Loomis as the school district’s newest superintendent.

I’ll concede up front that I do not know Loomis. I hope he does a good job. I also believe the Amarillo Independent School District should have looked beyond its administrative staff to find a new head educator. It didn’t. School trustees relied on the quality of the in-house hands to provide them with a quality applicant.

So, it’s Doug Loomis — the lone finalist for the superintendent post — who gets to step into the fire pit.

He inherits a job fraught with potential trouble. You see, the school board is under considerable community scrutiny over the resignation of an Amarillo High School girls volleyball coach who quit while complaining about parental interference into the way she did her job. Kori Clements said the board and the administration did not give her adequate support as she sought to fend off what she said was harassment from the interfering parent.

Indeed, Loomis was serving as acting superintendent when Clements quit one of Texas’s most vaunted athletic programs after just a single season as head coach. It was on his watch, therefore, that this matter blew apart.

To make matters worse, an Amarillo ISD resident — Marc Henson — has filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency. What’s more, Henson has identified the person who allegedly interfered with Coach Clements’ duties: school trustee Renee McCown.

The new superintendent answers to the board. This person is the only individual the board hires directly. Loomis will work for a board that has drawn considerable community anger over its handling of the Clements matter. He will walk the finest line possible.

I hope Loomis finds it within himself to counsel his bosses that they must remain acutely mindful that they are elected to set educational policy and not to monkey around with the way educators are doing their job. Trustees presumably hired him because they trust his judgment as he gives them his best advice and counsel. The community well could get a good look at how far that trust extends.

Not only must they be mindful, they must do only what they are empowered to do.

So . . . good luck, Doug Loomis.

national news

No, Sen. Paul . . . it is not time to investigate former president

I want to direct this brief post to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

Sen. Paul, please give up this notion of dragging former President Obama into the Russia matter involving Donald J. Trump.

The special counsel has concluded that the president’s campaign team did not collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016. That part of the probe is over.

Now, though, you say it’s time for Congress to examine what role Obama allegedly played in prompting the investigation. Good grief, man! Obama is out of office. What do you think you’re going to gain from examining it now?

Obama got word in 2016 of the FBI looking at potential Russian interference, but was advised to keep it quiet because of potential blowback as it being an effort to help Hillary Clinton. Who advised him to keep quiet? Sen. Mitch McConnell, your fellow Kentuckian.

Oh, and I chuckle at your citing some Twitter post from Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News personality, who has said it is time to examine the circumstances that pre-date Trump taking the presidential oath.

Why chuckle? Guilfoyle is dating Don Trump Jr., the president’s loudmouth eldest son. She is hardly an impartial bystander.

I am left to shake my head and mutter, “big . . . deal.”

national news

Senate majority leader obstructs yet again

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who famously obstructed President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court from getting a hearing, is at it again.

He now has obstructed a resolution calling for the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings into “collusion” with the Russians to the public. He doesn’t want us — you and me — to see how Mueller concluded that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign didn’t collude with Russian election attackers.

McConnell earned his obstructionist stripes when in 2016 he blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He played hardball politics. Yes, that gamble paid off with Trump’s election as president later that year. Trump then nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s seat and, by golly, Justice Gorsuch got confirmed by the Senate.

What is going on here? Might it be that there’s something in the findings that McConnell doesn’t want us to see? Is the public going to draw a different conclusion than the one Mueller reportedly reached?

The House of Representatives voted 420-0 to release the findings. The president has said he has no objection to the public getting a full look at what Mueller concluded and how he reached his conclusion. Attorney General William Barr said he intends to release the results in a matter of “weeks, not months.”

But the Senate GOP boss says no can do?

Knock it off, Mitch. Get with the program. The public wants to see the results. It is demanding it of you and your Republican cohorts. You may stop obstructing at any moment.

medical news

What happened to that ‘pre-existing conditions’ promise?

So much for Republicans’ promise to protect those suffering from “pre-existing conditions” in the ongoing battle over the future of the Affordable Care Act.

The Donald Trump administration — namely the Justice Department — has asked the courts to toss out the ACA, all of it. The decision marks a stunning reversal from the 2018 midterm campaign when GOP candidates across the nation — along with the president himself — pledged to do all they could to protect the portion of the ACA that protects those who suffer from pre-existing conditions.

I should mention here that there is no replacement remedy in place should the court system toss out the ACA. This latest effort is expected to deny more than 20 million Americans of health insurance. Then what?

Donald Trump has joined yet another chorus that goes back on that hollow pledge.

Another broken promise

Democrats who were stung by special counsel Robert Mueller’s decision to essentially clear the president of “collusion” with Russians during the 2016 campaign were given a gift of sorts. They wanted to change the subject. Donald Trump changed it for them.

I continue to scratch my head in wonderment over the GOP’s fixation with tossing out former President Obama’s signature domestic triumph. Republicans tried for most of Obama’s time as president to repeal it; they failed. Then when Trump got elected in 2016, they kept trying; they kept failing, even when they controlled all of Congress and the White House.

The 2018 midterm election changed the political calculus when Democrats took control of the House largely on fear that the GOP would continue to seek to end a health care insurance law that is growing in support across the nation.

What’s maddening, too, is that the administration decided to join this anti-ACA action despite arguments from Cabinet officials against such a move. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was one who resisted the effort.

The ACA isn’t perfect. I get all that. Why not mend it? Why not improve those portions of the law that need work?

Congressional Republicans and the president remain intent on removing Barack Obama’s fingerprints from existing law. To what end remains as muddy as ever.

Shameful.

legal news, national news, political news

Release the findings sooner, not later

The reports out of Washington now tell us that Attorney General William Barr is going to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings on collusion in “weeks, not months.”

That is a good thing. Although I would prefer the reports would have said “days, not weeks or months.”

I won’t join the chorus that sings the tune that Barr might be running interference for the guy who appointed him, Donald Trump. I still believe the attorney general is enough of a stand-up guy to do the right thing.

Mueller’s 22-month investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians ended with a determination that the campaign did not collude. It has sparked shouts of joy among Republicans and groans of dismay among Democrats.

We don’t yet know for ourselves what Mueller has determined. All we’ve seen and heard so far is Barr’s interpretation of what Mueller found. I want to see the real thing, as much of it as possible, with own eyes. I want to digest those findings for myself.

I want AG Barr to disprove fears of many critics that he’s a Trump toadie who is doing the president’s bidding. He did take an oath to defend the Constitution and did not swear any particular loyalty to the president of the United States.

As for any possible GOP resistance to releasing the findings to the public, I only can ask: If those findings shore up what we’ve been told already, that Donald Trump is in the clear, isn’t it in everyone’s best interest to see those findings as quickly as possible?

local news, Sports news

Amarillo Sod Poodles: We’re No. 1?

This bit of news simply knocks me out.

The Amarillo Sod Poodles, which is about to begin playing AA hardball, has been named the top team nickname in all of minor-league baseball.

The Sod Poodles beat out the El Paso Chihuahuas by a couple of percentage points in a vote taken by Fox Sports: MLB.

Is this the real deal? Is this poll legit, or does it assume credence merely because it gives the home team some positive karma?

I don’t know. I do think believe it’s kind of cool that a name that was greeted initially in the city by across-the-board scorn has won this particular honor.

I saw the names of the other teams being considered. I liked the Lansing Lug Nuts and the Hartford Yard Goats, too.

But I am one who has gone through a change of heart regarding the Sod Poodles name. I hated it at first, then grew to embrace it.

Now it appears that others like it, too.

Unless Amarillo’s baseball fans have stuffed the ballot box. Whatever . . . the Sod Poodles are No. 1!

national news, political news

Is POTUS launching a re-election effort based on revenge?

Is Donald J. Trump crafting a re-election strategy based on exacting revenge against those who insisted that he colluded with Russians or that he obstructed justice?

What are we to discern from the president’s response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings that (a) the president didn’t collude with Russians and (b) the obstruction of justice allegation remains an open question?

Trump has won a significant victory with Mueller’s conclusion that his campaign team did not conspire to collude with Russians who had invaded our electoral system in 2016. He should be grateful for Mueller’s service, dust himself off and get back to governing . . . isn’t that right?

I guess not! He is enraged at his foes. Of course he includes the media among those he intends to inflict retribution.

The media reported the special counsel’s arduous trek through the morass that lay before him. The media did their job. The so-called “fake news” constituted all the information that Trump and his team saw as negative. So . . . fu***** what? That goes with the territory. It goes with the job of becoming leader of the world’s most powerful and influential nation.

So now the president, who should be crafting a message of what he intends to do in a second term as president, appears to be spending an inordinate amount of effort looking for ways to stick it to his foes.

He’s already in full re-election campaign mode. That’s been obvious for some time. Yes, he deserves to have his message heard. I just am becoming more baffled by what the message is going to tell us.

In the immediate aftermath of the special counsel concluding his investigation into The Russia Thing, I am believing the president is much more intent on revenge than on governance.

national news

Trump vows that no future president should go through it

That’s fine, Mr. President. Go ahead and make your blustering claim to promise that no future president should endure what you have brought upon yourself.

Robert Mueller says you didn’t collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system. Yes, the former FBI director has locked arms with intelligence chiefs in acknowledging what you (in)famously denied in the presence of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

I accept, Mr. President, that Mueller did what he was charged to do, which was to determine whether you were a “Russian asset” during the 2016 election. He said you were not. I accept Mueller’s findings.

However, if you intend to ensure that no future president should go through what you went through, the burden falls on American voters. We shouldn’t elect pathological liars to the office of president. That is what we got when you won the Electoral College vote in 2016.

Mr. President, you lie gratuitously. You lie on matters large and small. You are incapable of telling us the truth, sir. Your minions lied on your behalf about the Russians and about your relationships with them. They lie. You lie.

How are we supposed to take a single, solitary thing you say as true, Mr. President? I know the answer to that rhetorical question. We cannot believe anything that comes out of your mouth. You are untrustworthy in the extreme.

My goodness, you lied about “total exoneration” even as Attorney General William Barr was telling us that Mueller did not exonerate you on the obstruction of justice allegation.

So, let’s stop with the threats of retribution and your empty promise to prevent “future presidents” from answering the questions that have been posed to you and your associates.

The burden is ours, Mr. President. We need to turn you out of office next year and elect someone who is capable of telling us the truth.

national news

Trump’s victory dance takes on vengeful look

Donald Trump won a significant victory with Robert Mueller’s findings that the president’s campaign did not “collude” with Russians.

Now the president is launching what is looking like a revenge mission to strike back at those who he says have done him wrong.

We’re hearing reports that he is going after media personalities, media organizations, political foes, former intelligence officials who have been openly critical of him.

Wow! C’mon, Mr. POTUS. The man needs to accept the special counsel’s findings with a semblance of gratitude for the service he has done. Then he needs to get about the task of actual governing.

I shall point out that Democrats in Congress, not to mention millions of Americans beyond the Beltway, are upset with what Mueller has concluded. They wanted the special counsel to decapitate the Trump administration with a finding that said Trump’s campaign did collude with Russians.

The president characteristically has misstated the obvious. He said Mueller has given him “total exoneration.” No, he hasn’t done anything of the sort. Mueller said the obstruction of justice allegation has yet to be settled. Mueller said he didn’t find enough evidence to bring a complaint, but added that the absence of such evidence doesn’t clear the president.

I fear the matter has gotten muddied up even more.

Trump’s collusion battle appears over. The president can declare victory. He should have done so with a brief statement issued on White House stationery and then be done with it.

But . . . it’s not over.

Yes, we’re going to endure more pitched battles.

Help!