Monthly Archives: June 2019

national news, national security

Stand firm, FBI director Wray

I want to declare right here and right now my strong desire for FBI director Christopher Wray to stay where he is, in charge of the world’s premier law enforcement/investigative agency.

You see, Wray has just been undermined by the man who appointed him to his office, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Trump told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that he would accept information about a political foe presented to him by a foreign power, even a hostile foreign power, such as, oh, Russia.

Director Wray, though, has said specifically and categorically that any political candidate whose campaign receives such information must turn it over the FBI.

Trump said when reminded of Wray’s view by Stephanopoulos that “The FBI director is wrong.”

There you have it. The president once again is refusing directly to back the wisdom cited by the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Do not go anywhere, Christopher Wray.

Yes, it likely will be a trying time for Wray as the 2020 presidential election gets into full swing. The Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016. Wray’s predecessor as FBI director, James Comey, began looking deeply into “The Russia Thing” and got fired by the president.

The FBI needs a strong leader. Christopher Wray appears to be a grownup and a law enforcement and legal pro. I realize that an ethical professional would find it trying, indeed, to work in a government administration led by someone without an scintilla of ethical understanding.

I just want to beseech Christopher Wray. The nation needs this man. Badly.

national news

It’s all about politics

Blogger’s Note: This blog post appeared originally on KETR-FM’s website.

Whether the president of the United States is impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives is going to rely solely on a grim political calculation.

Democrats run the House these days. They seem hell bent on impeaching Donald Trump. The numbers of House members calling for an immediate impeachment “inquiry” is growing. Almost all the pro-impeachment voices come from the Democratic caucus; one Republican House member, Justin Amash of Michigan, has joined that chorus.

Do you want further evidence of the political aspect of impeachment? I offer you a survey done by the Texas Tribune, which has sought answers from the entire 38-member Texas congressional delegation.

How do you think it shakes out?

Read the Texas Tribune survey on this link:

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/05/did-texas-lawmakers-read-mueller-report-we-asked/

The Tribune asked all the state’s House members and its two senators, Republicans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, two key questions: “Have you read the Mueller Report in its entirety?” and “Do you think the report warrants any legislative action?”

I’ll give you three guesses how the answers shook out … and the first two guesses don’t count.

Yes, the state’s Democratic House members – those who responded to the Tribune – said they had read the report and said that Congress should begin at the very least an inquiry into whether to launch a full impeachment hearing against the president.

The Texas GOP delegation sounded, um, a good bit differently. Not all of them responded, either; indeed, Sen. Cruz didn’t respond, which – to be honest – kind of surprised me.

But those who did read the report came to vastly different conclusions about what it said and what Congress should do in response.

One Republican House member, Will Hurd of the 23rd Congressional District, came close to breaking ranks with his caucus. He told the Tribune: “I have read the Mueller Report and I hope that I get the chance to ask Robert Mueller some questions as a member of the House Intelligence Committee.”

To be honest, my favorite response came from freshman GOP U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of the Third Congressional District, who happens to be my congressman, and from GOP Rep. Roger Williams of the 25th Congressional District. Did he read the report? Taylor and Williams said “Yes.” Should Congress take any legislative action? Taylor and Williams said, “No.” Hey, no need to explain themselves, correct? Well, I believe they should lay out some detail on why Congress need not pursue any legislative action.

My point here is that despite the flowery rhetoric we hear from many Democrats and other political progressives about their concern for the U.S. Constitution and why the nation’s governing document is their reason to seek impeachment, I am inclined to believe even more strongly that the issue revolves solely around politics.

The response from the Texas congressional delegation – comprising a healthy Republican majority – makes the point abundantly clear.

Russian attack

Trump would do what? He’d take info on foe from foreign power?

Donald Trump has spoken words I never thought I ever would hear come out of the mouth of a president of the United States of America.

He has told a U.S. TV news anchor that if a foreign power brought information to him or his campaign about a political opponent that he would “take it.” Yes, he would accept that information.

Oh, and he also might notify the FBI that someone had delivered him “opposition research” on a political opponent.

Trump sat in the Oval Office and took questions from George Stephanopoulos, who asked him what he would do if a foreign power sought to interfere with a U.S. election the way the Russians did in 2016. Trump didn’t call it “interference.” He compared it to what members of Congress get all the time from groups doing “oppo research” on political foes.

No. It isn’t the same.

This revelation came from the president of the United States. He already has been investigated at great length over whether his 2016 campaign accepted dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Trump to this very day apparently sees nothing wrong with a foreign power — in the case of Russia, a hostile foreign power — interfering in our electoral system.

FBI director Christopher Wray said any candidate should report such action immediately to the FBI, Stephanopoulos told Trump. “The FBI director is wrong,” Trump responded.

This is unbelievable! It’s incredible! It’s, um, unpatriotic!

There might be anything illegal about accepting such information from a foreign power. However, isn’t there any sense of whether it is right?

Where is the president’s sense of ethics? No need to answer that. I know where it is. It doesn’t exist anywhere inside the man who occupies the Oval Office.

I guess we might be able to presume that if the Russians are going to repeat their 2016 dirty work in the 2020 election that the president would be just fine with it.

Astonishing!

local news

Red-lights cameras can stay … at least for a while

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that I wish he hadn’t signed. It was a bill that disallows cities from deploying red-light cameras to aid in enforcing traffic safety laws.

Ah, but here’s an interesting catch: An amendment to the bill approved by the Legislature allows cities to keep the cameras operating until their current vendor contracts expire. That means that while cities can terminate contracts for cause, they also can keep them operating for the length of the contract.

One city that has the cameras in place is Amarillo. I strongly supported Amarillo’s decision to use the devices to deter motorists from running red lights. I also strongly support the city’s apparent decision to stay the course until its contract with the vendor runs out.

Amarillo’s contract with American Traffic Solutions expires in September 2022. So, for more than three more years the city will be able to rely on the cameras to be on guard against lawbreakers when the police are looking the other way.

Unlike some cities knuckled under to some critics of the devices, Amarillo recently expanded the deployment locations, believing it had identified troublesome intersections; it did remove the cameras at some other intersections as well.

So, it’s a good-news, bad-news sort of thing. Some cities will get to keep the devices on duty for the length of their contracts; that’s the good news.

The bad news is that the contracts will expire eventually.

Then what? Will these Texas communities’ motorists and pedestrians be exposed to those who just don’t bother to follow the instructions to stop when the street signals turn red?

entertainment news

This man’s music still holds up … after all these years!

I saw him once at the very first rock ‘n roll concert I ever attended, in August 1965, at the Portland (Ore.) Memorial Coliseum.

I would see him later, in 1993, at the Houston Astrodome.

In a few days, I’ll be perched in the nose-bleed seats at Globe-Life Park in Arlington, Texas … to hear the music of Sir Paul McCartney.

Fifty-four years ago, Sir Paul was just Paul, part of that band known as The Beatles. Along with John, George and Ringo, the band played all of about 35 minutes, cranked out 10 songs, endured the incessant din of 11,000 screaming fans — not to mention a near riot when a couple hundred girls sought to rush the stage at the playful urging of John Lennon.

Then came the Astrodome show. My wife and I made the drive to Houston from Beaumont, sat in a crowd of about 55,000 fans who came to hear Paul play Beatles songs. Then I had a major life thrill by singing “Hey Jude,” the best song ever recorded, right along with Paul and his band.

The third show I will get to see likely will be packed to the brim with fans. They’ll be a lot of gray hair in the crowd, I can assure you. I am recalling now the time I stood in line in Beaumont to buy tickets for the Astrodome show 26 years ago; the fellow behind me said, “I bet you don’t see this much gray hair at a U-2 concert.”

Here’s the other very strange aspect of Paul’s present-day concerts. Listen to him play 50-year-old songs and then watch teenagers — children! — singing along with him, knowing every word of every golden oldie he cranks out.

So, here we are. My hair is a lot grayer now than it was in 1993. Indeed, so is Sir Paul’s hair. But the boy can still play. He’s how old? Nearly seventy-bleeping-seven?

And yet his music still holds up, It still stands the test of time. It remains immortal. He still packs ’em in. He still puts on a show worth every nickel one wants to pay.

I am not ashamed to admit this, too: I am likely to cry a time or two.

Let’s rock, Sir Paul!

crime news, Johnnie Cochran, national news

Hey, what about the ‘search for real killer(s)’?

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Today marks 25 years since the deaths of two individuals who became linked inextricably with a former football great, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and someone who most Americans believe got away with a heinous crime.

O.J. Simpson was acquitted later of murdering his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Nicole’s home in Los Angeles. O.J. was implicated in the deaths, given his past history of spousal abuse and, oh yeah, the physical evidence that the cops recovered from the crime scene.

Simpson hired a crack legal team led by Johnnie Cochran, and including Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey and the father of those Kardashian girls, Robert Kardashian.

They cast sufficient doubt on the police investigation into the murder to score an acquittal. O.J. walked free and then made this pledge: that he would “spend the rest of my life” looking for the “real killer or killers of Nicole and Ron.”

Oh, but now he says he doesn’t want to “dwell on the negative.” He wants to move with his grown children. He lives in Las Vegas and spends his days playing golf.

I guess I should add that he was found “liable” for Nicole and Ron’s death in a civil suit and ordered to pay $33 million. The level of proof in the civil case was far less demanding that the criminal case. Still, that civil jury said in effect, dare I declare it, that O.J. killed his wife and friend.

What about the pledge to find the killers, O.J.? Are you still on the hunt?

Naw … I didn’t think so.

Christine Brennan wrote in USA Today that the real focus as we look back on this day should be on the Goldman family, who lost a son and a brother to, um, someone.

She urges us to devote our lives to creating what Simpson himself called a “no negative zone.” Not a bad idea at all.

But if hell freezes over and O.J. Simpson finds the real killers, I trust he’ll let us know.

national news

Polls are useless this far out from Election Day

I am going to breathe a heavy sigh as I write these next few sentences.

I heard today that Joseph R. Biden Jr. leads Donald J. Trump Sr. by 13 percentage points, according to a Quinnipiac University public opinion poll. The media have exploded over those findings. They say the poll results point to potentially serious trouble for the president if former Vice President Biden emerges as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 2020.

Allow me to state the obvious: Any poll this far away from Election Day does not mean a single thing. Nothing, man! Zero.

Must we be reminded that Donald Trump was seen as a novelty candidate when he declared his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015? No one took this TV celebrity/real estate mogul seriously.

We take him seriously now, at least in terms of his standing as the president of the United States of America.

Do I want him to lose the 2020 election? Well, yeah! I do! I intend to use this blog as a forum to seek his ouster as president no later than Election Day 2020.

However, the polling that’s being kicked around a year and a half from the next election shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Talk to me, pollsters and pundits, next spring. Or maybe next summer. Then I’ll pay attention to the polls.

national news

Jon Stewart stands up for our heroes

Forgive me for using a word that I have contended over the years has been misused, but I’m going to use it anyway.

Jon Stewart is my newest hero. He stood up today for the first responders, the men and women who rushed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11. He sat before a House Judiciary subcommittee and excoriated the House members for failing to act to protect those heroic first responders.

He spoke for millions of Americans who want the government to deliver on the promise it made 18 years ago, that it would ensure that the first responders — the firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, military members — would always have the medical protection they would require if the needs arose.

The comedian, producer and writer spoke of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund that has yet to be extended. Why? Because the Senate cannot muster up the guts to do what it should do, which is provide the money set aside for the fund; the House has approved this legislation, but it goes to the Senate essentially to die.

Steward acknowledged that he sounded “angry and undiplomatic” but still spoke forcefully to House members. Were they moved in any form by what Stewart said? I have no clue. They should have been moved.

He berated House members for their “callous indifference” and their “rank hypocrisy” as it relates to the 9/11 victims fund. He noted that first responders have died from illnesses related directly to their exposure during those first horrific hours after the terrorist attacks.

Jon Stewart put on a rare display of visceral anger coming from a celebrity who happens also to be a taxpayer, a citizen and a man whose voice needs to be heard.

Will those who serve in our federal government answer the call to stand behind those who risked their lives on their behalf?

Yes, those responders are the real heroes in this discussion. I want to salute Jon Stewart, too, for the courage he exhibited in giving Congress the a**-chewing it deserves.

local news

Loop 335 to take center stage yet again

Take a gander at this picture, notably the sign identifying Helium Road. It’s in far west Amarillo, Texas. It runs north-south west of Soncy Road.

Eventually, Helium Road is going to become a very important thoroughfare for the region, just as Soncy Road was supposed to be when it was built so many years ago.

The Texas Department of Transportation recently had one of those ceremonial groundbreaking events signifying the eventual start of construction along Helium Road. TxDOT is going to turn Helium into a newly relocated Loop 335, which circles Amarillo.

Loop 335’s western section now runs along Soncy Road. It has been a serious puzzle to me for years. When TxDOT built Soncy, it did not create a thoroughfare that allows motorists to use the loop as it should have been used: as a way to bypass city traffic.

Soncy Road has become, well, just another busy street. Starting at Interstate 40 and heading south, traffic often slows to a crawl with motorists pulling in and out of strip malls, business malls, a couple of major automobile dealerships, restaurants and a newly developed residential complex.

Loop 335 does not exist as a loop the way, for example, Loop 289 exists in Lubbock. Loop 289 is a raised highway that circles Lubbock; there is limited access on and off the loop. It functions as a bypass highway.

Loop 335 as it has been allowed to develop has turned into something quite different at least along that westernmost quadrant.

Well, Helium Road is about to be torn to pieces. TxDOT will extend the loop past Soncy and run it along Helium. There will be serious disruption along Helium. Indeed, there exists an RV park where my wife and I often stay when we return to Amarillo in our fifth wheel; the RV park sits right on Helium Road, just north of I-40.

So, I’ve got a bit of skin in that particular game.

I don’t know when the work will begin. Nor do I know how long it will take. I am quite certain that Amarillo motorists who have grown weary of the incessant interstate highway construction on I-40 and I-27 will be gnashing their teeth once the work starts on the “new” Loop 335.

My best advice? It’s not much but it’s the best I can do.

Be, um, very patient.

State news

Let the kids’ lemonade flow!

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken up the cudgel for the state’s budding entrepreneurs.

Abbott signed a bill that makes it illegal for cities and homeowners associations to force children to shut down their lemonade stands.

Yes, I know I have been tough on the governor and the Legislature for snatching local-control issues out of locals’ hands. This one, though, makes me smile.

State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, authored the bill that prohibits the closure from cities and local neighborhood groups. Kids like to sell non-alcoholic drinks to raise money for all manner of causes: field trips, gifts for Mom and Dad, or just plain vacation money.

As the Texas Tribune reports, support for the legislation grew after two East Texas siblings were forced in 2015 to shut down a lemonade stand they had set up to raise money for a Father’s Day gift.

The injustice of it all! I’m tellin’ ya, those youngsters needed the strong arm of the state. Well, those who will come along to raise money for their own parents will have the protection of state law.

The warning now has been sent to city halls and neighborhood association busy-bodies: Leave the kids alone! In fact, you need to buy a glass of the cool drink yourselves to help the up-and-coming business tycoons meet their financial goals.