Monthly Archives: March 2019

national news

‘No collusion, no obstruction’

I said I would accept whatever conclusion that special counsel Robert Mueller III reached regarding whether Donald Trump “colluded” with Russians who attacked our election in2016.

He has delivered his verdict: There is no evidence of collusion, no evidence of obstruction of justice.

I accept his findings. I do so not because I am happy about what the special counsel has determined. I accept it because I believe implicitly in Mueller’s thoroughness, his integrity, his professionalism.

Do I believe this is the end of the line for those who still question the president’s motivation? Does this mean there’s nothing to questions about whether Trump is profiting from dealings with foreign leaders and governments? Uh, no on both counts.

But . . . Mueller’s findings, which he delivered to Attorney General William Barr this past Friday, have cleared the president of criminal behavior as it regards collusion or obstruction of justice.

On that score, I welcome the news that the president of the United States did not work in tandem with a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of a presidential election.

However, my acceptance of Mueller’s findings notwithstanding, I want to challenge the assertion that Trump made that the authorities need to look at “the other side.” He means Democrats and their 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. President, they have looked carefully at Clinton, at Democrats and others on their side of the aisle. The FBI drew the same type of conclusion that Mueller has just delivered: no criminality.

There’s more investigating to be done, by Congress and by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

Mueller’s work is done. Good. He’s earned some time off.

I’ll just add that although he says there was “no collusion” or “no obstruction,” Mueller has not — contrary to what the president has said via Twitter — provided “total exoneration.”

More to come.

Sports news

How can she stay on the job?

I actually have been trying to insert myself into the skull of an Amarillo, Texas, Independent School District trustee whose conduct in office has been called into serious question.

Renee McCown has been identified as the trustee who badgered the coach of a celebrated high school athletic program into resigning. The identity came forward in a complaint filed by an AISD resident to the Texas Education Agency.

McCown allegedly harassed former Amarillo High School girls volleyball coach Kori Clements over playing time given to her daughters who played for the Sandies team. The Amarillo High girls volleyball program is one of the more storied athletic programs in Texas. Clements, a 2006 AHS grad, is a product of that program.

Elected public officials simply must not interfere in the staffers’ performance of their job.

I’ve already declared my desire for McCown to resign. Her seat doesn’t come up for a vote until 2022. That means she has three more years to make policy decisions for the school district.

I cannot help but wonder: How does she stay in office? This trustee’s reputation has been damaged, perhaps beyond repair. She hasn’t answered any of the allegations. She wouldn’t look her constituents in the eye during an AISD board meeting a few weeks ago when they scolded the board over Clements’ resignation. The way I see it, the allegations seem quite credible.

This is an element of public service that I don’t get. Someone whose conduct in office has been challenged openly needs to rebuild community trust in order to make decisions on the community’s behalf.

I don’t know how Renee McCown does that.

I’ll say it again. She needs to resign and give her public service seat up to someone who won’t face the kind of accusations that have brought shame to the school board.

national news

‘No indictments’ do not mean ‘no trouble’

It’s a quiet Sunday in our house and I am waiting for William Barr to spill the beans on what Robert Mueller found out in his investigation into Donald J. Trump and “The Russia Thing.”

I’ll add this point and then I will be quiet until we hear from the attorney general.

Special counsel Mueller’s decision against recommending any new indictments against the president or his team does not signal the end of potential legal or political jeopardy.

Thus, the president’s Republican friends are dancing and prancing prematurely. It might be that their touchdown dance might be warranted. Then again, Mueller might have delivered the Mother of All Scolding to his good friend William Barr, who then will tell the public what the special counsel has determined.

I am staying tuned.

local news, media news, national news

Toughen up, Mr. President

Donald J. “Faux Tough Guy in Chief” Trump needs to toughen up, suck it up and go with the flow.

He won’t, of course. I just thought I’d admonish him anyway.

The president seems to want to take action against comedy shows (for crying out loud!) that make fun of him. “Saturday Night Live,” a show he says he doesn’t watch, is a favorite target of his threats of political revenge.

Trump talks tough. He bellows about how we oughtta take protesters out back and “beat the sh** out of ’em.” He sidles up to worldwide strongmen, while denigrating our own intelligence experts. Oh, and while he continues to pile on to the memory of a legitimate American military hero, the late John McCain.

He bullies his foes via Twitter, hurling insults and innuendo at them willy-nilly.

But the dude just cannot stomach the idea that others poke fun at him. Donald Trump is a wuss in wolf’s clothing.

I am reminded at this moment of a politician I used to cover when I worked in Beaumont as editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise. The late U.S. Rep. Charles “Good Time Charlie” Wilson was an East Texas Democrat known for (a) his love of the military and (b) his desire to surround himself with attractive women.

Wilson also was an effective congressman who understood the role of the media that covered him. We covered his comings and goings at the Enterprise and on occasion we would chide him for things he would say or do.

We had a cartoonist on our staff, Jerry Byrd, who would illustrate our newspaper’s criticism with his editorial-page artwork.

What was Charlie’s response? How did he react? He would call us and ask us for the original cartoon so he could display it on his office walls in Washington, D.C., or in his district office in Lufkin, Texas!

Yep, Wilson was a grownup who knew that criticism from the media came with the job for which he took a solemn oath.

Donald Trump has yet to understand that truth about public service. I doubt seriously he’ll ever get it.

national news

Study shows hate crime spike

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How are we supposed to interpret this study?

Get a load of this: A University of North Texas analysis has disclosed that hate crimes increased 226 percent in those counties where Donald Trump staged political rallies during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Huh? But . . . wait! Don’t the Trump allies say there’s no relationship between the president and the reported resurgence of white supremacist hate groups?

Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that.

The study was done by Ayal Feinberg, a political science doctoral student at UNT, along with Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, two UNT political science professors.

They contend that the study reveals that the spike occurred in the months immediately after Trump held those rallies while he was campaigning for president of the United States.

According to The Hill newspaper: “They said their research sought to explain how some of Trump’s rhetoric ‘may encourage hate crimes.'”

How do you dismiss the findings, that such hate crimes spiked 226 percent in those counties were Trump fired ’em up with his red-hot rhetoric?

It’s difficult to separate the findings from the president’s speech.

The Hill’s story explains how the researchers collected their data. Read it here.

I have resisted suggesting that Trump’s rhetoric was directly responsible for horrific acts, such as — for example — the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre of 50 people at two mosques the other day. The white supremacist/moron arrested, though, reportedly had been inspired by something Trump had said.

And, yes, the president did equate neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 by referring to “very fine people on both sides” participating in that deadly riot.

This is the individual who serves as president of the Land of Opportunity.

Oh . . . my.

environmental news

Texas AG becomes environmental watchdog

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I’ll be candid. I never have considered Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to be much of an environmental watchdog, let alone an activist. 

So, what does the top state Republican legal eagle do? He files a lawsuit against a Houston company that owns a storage terminal that erupted in flames, pouring tons of chemicals into the air.

Intercontinental Terminals has been slapped with a lawsuit over the fires that detonated at its suburban Deer Park storage units. It has closed the Houston Ship Channel, one of the world’s busiest international shipping waterways. The fires have contaminated the air, pouring clouds filled with cancer-causing benzine.

The suit was filed on behalf of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It alleges that Intercontinental Terminals has filed the Texas Clean Air Act.

The company faces the possibility of stiff fines if the AG wins his lawsuit.

Company faces major fines

Environmental groups are cheering the attorney general on. I want to join them, even though it does surprise me.

Paxton was a GOP legislator from Collin County before he got elected as AG in 2014. He was re-elected to a second term in 2018. He’s had a bit of legal trouble, facing a probable trial on securities fraud later this year. But that’s another story.

I find his lawsuit to be a fairly refreshing and pleasant surprise.

The Deer Park fires have been buggers to extinguish. They have blackened the sky along the Gulf Coast. They have put thousands of Texans’ health at risk.

I stand with AG Ken Paxton in seeking justice.

national news

Waiting for that proverbial big shoe to drop

While the nation — perhaps the world — awaits word on what Robert Mueller III concluded in his exhaustive investigation into alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russians, it is good to understand what we do not yet know.

We don’t know whether special counsel Mueller found any sort of collusion between the Trump team and Russians who hacked into our election system. It’s good to understand that “collusion” is not a crime. Therefore, Mueller isn’t going to charge anyone with committing a criminal offense if they winked and nodded at Russians who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton, Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent.

Nor do we know whether the president — in Mueller’s eyes — “obstructed justice” when he fired FBI director James Comey in the spring of 2017 because he was conducting a probe into that “Russia thing.” Again, there might not be any criminality involved with Comey’s firing, but there might be an intent that Mueller has identified.

Mueller has been mum on every aspect of his investigation. Thus, we don’t know if he’s going to give Trump the kind of tongue-lashing that Comey gave to Clinton when he concluded the FBI probe into her use of private e-mail servers while she was secretary of state. Do you recall how Comey said Clinton was guilty of “extreme recklessness”? It gave Republican opponents of Clinton plenty of fodder to toss at her while she sought the presidency in 2016. Will there be a similar scolding in store for the president when we see what Mueller has concluded?

It has been said in the past 24 hours that “We don’t know what we don’t know.” To put it another way, it is good to keep our traps shut and stop speculating about what Mueller has delivered to Attorney General William Barr.

Mueller had a narrow mandate when he accepted the special counsel job two years ago. It was to determine the extent — if any — of collusion between Trump’s team and the Russians. His work is done. We don’t know what he has concluded.

Is this the end of it? Does the president now slip/slide away out of the grasp of prosecutors? Umm. No. He’s still got Congress that will be hot on his trail. And let’s not dismiss those prosecutors in New York who are looking at other matters not connected to the Russians.

Mueller’s findings are still to be revealed.

Let’s just wait. Shall we?

national news

No high-fives, or condolences just yet

To those who support Donald Trump and those who oppose the president, I want to offer a word of caution for plainly different reasons.

The Trumpsters out there are high-fiving each other over Robert Mueller III’s submission of a report to Attorney General William Barr; he did so without recommending any further indictments into his probe of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians who attacked our electoral system.

They’re repeating the president’s mantra: no collusion.

Whoa! Hang on here, man!

We don’t know anything of what the special counsel’s report says.

The anti-Trump factions are expressing some level of disappointment. They wanted Mueller to deliver some heads — and maybe even some genitalia — on a platter when he turned in his report to Barr. That didn’t happen. Mueller didn’t recommend any more indictments.

To both warring camps I want to offer the same words of caution. It is premature to gloat or glower over what Mueller has completed.

We do no know a thing!

Are we clear? Good!

Join me in waiting for the AG to let Congress know what Mueller has submitted. I guarantee you that a federal government branch with 535 blabbermouths in both legislative chambers cannot possibly keep a secret.

Once they know . . . we’ll all know.

national news

Would the AG dare keep this report secret?

I’ll admit readily to being wrong more than I am right.

Still, I have to wonder about the concerns of those who believe Attorney General William Barr might keep Robert Mueller’s findings secret, that he won’t allow any release of his findings to the public that has a legitimate right to know what the special counsel has determined.

We hear the gripes from folks who suggest that since Barr is a Donald Trump appointee that he will run interference for the president. Mueller spent two years examining allegations of collusion and conspiracy, not to mention obstruction of justice involving the president’s campaign and Russians who attacked our electoral system.

I have faith that Barr is going to do right by the public. He will hear the calls to release the results. Trump says he’s fine with the public knowing what Mueller has determined; then again, the president might change his mind . . . you know?

I believe William Barr is a stand-up guy who will heed the calls from leaders of both political parties. They want the results released. Members of the public want them released, too. After all, Mueller spent millions of dollars of our money to get to the root of the questions that have swirled all over the Trump administration.

Yes, I could be wrong. I recognize that I am far from the political center of gravity. I am just one American living out here in the middle of the country trying to make sense of what is happening in our nation’s capital.

I cannot believe the AG is arrogant enough — or stupid enough — to keep these results a secret.

International news

Trump ‘likes’ a killer, tyrant, despot?

What in the name of international diplomatic norms is going on here?

Donald Trump’s administration announced sanctions against North Korea, citing its recommitment to building its nuclear arsenal despite promises to “denuclearize.” Then the president, without consulting anyone, reverses his own administration.

The president removed the sanctions. Why?

About all we got immediately came Friday from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said only that Trump “likes Chairman Kim” Jong Un, the tyrant/killer/despot/madman who runs the reclusive Marxist regime in North Korea.

The president who dismisses American war heroes, denigrates U.S. intelligence analysts, questions his homeland security team, ignores the advice he gets from “the best people” surrounding him “likes” a guy like Kim Jong Un — the overfed dictator who starves his own people.

Go . . . figure. If you can.

Good grief.