Monthly Archives: June 2019

International news

Let’s give credit where it’s due on immigration

It’s time to hand out a bit of credit where I believe it is due.

The Donald Trump administration has worked out an agreement with Mexico that aims to crack down on what’s been called “irregular migration” through Mexico into the United States.

The payoff is the suspension of a 5 percent tariff on all products imported from Mexico into this country. That, right there, is reason to cheer this result.

Mexico is going to send about 6,000 national guard troops to border entry points, concentrating on its border with Guatemala; it also is going to hold those seeking asylum in this country and start working to grant them such status in Mexico; the United States also will be able to return Central American migrants to Mexico while their asylum status is being adjudicated.

OK, it’s not the perfect solution. However, it remove for the immediate and medium-term future the threat of nonsensical tariffs that the president threatened to impose. Let’s get real: The tariffs do more damage to American consumers than to Mexican exporters, as the tariff only will add to the cost of goods coming into this country.

Trump sought to hold the tariff threat over Mexico. His tactic seems to have worked. Mexico sent its foreign minister to Washington to negotiate a deal with the State Department, Homeland Security and the White House.

How much direct involvement included the president himself, of course, remains a mystery. My hunch is that Trump didn’t play much of a role in the nuts and bolts of such an agreement.

Still, it happened on his watch. Now it’s up to Mexico to deliver on its pledge to act more proactively and aggressively to stop the flow of illegal migrants through its country and into this one.

national news

Wait a minute! Is it the moon, or Mars, or where, Mr. POTUS?

Here you go. Check out this Twitter message that flew into cyberspace today from the president of the United States of America.

He now says the United States needs to send human beings to Mars. That’s the big goal. The moon? Forget about it, says Donald Trump. We’ve been there already. Done that. Let’s not go back.

But wait a minute!

The president himself issued a directive in 2018 committing a return to the moon within the next five years. Vice President Mike Pence has spoken about the president’s stated desire to return to the moon, the celestial body we departed when Apollo 17 lifted off from the lunar surface in 1972.

So, which is it? Are we going to the moon or not? Or are we going to skip all that Mickey Mouse stuff and head straight for the Red Planet?

Don’t get me wrong. I am totally in favor of manned space travel. I want humans to return to the moon. I want them to fly to Mars, too. I am just flummoxed as to what the president wants to do. He cannot seem to deliver consistent and cogent messages.

Here again is what happens when we turn Donald Trump loose to make declarations via Twitter without a scintilla of thought or consideration.

Beam me up!

business news, International news

Stop the presses! Trump suspends tariff!

It’s nice to be able to say something positive emanating from the Donald Trump administration.

The president has announced a suspension of scheduled tariffs on all goods coming from Mexico, which was supposed to take effect on Monday.

Trump said he would impose a 5 percent tariff on those imported products, which in reality is a tax on American consumers, unless Mexico took action to stem illegal migration from Mexico to the United States.

Well, Mexico and the United States have reached an agreement, the details of which will be revealed shortly.

No tariff, said the president. That is good news! I am glad to share it.

According to PBS: A tax on all Mexican goods , which would increase every month up to 25% under Trump’s plan, would have had enormous economic implications for both countries. Americans bought $378 billion worth of Mexican imports last year, led by cars and auto parts. Many members of Trump’s Republican Party and business allies have urged him to reconsider — or at least postpone actually implementing the tariffs as talks continue — citing the potential harm to American consumers and manufacturers.

The impact on the tariff would have a profoundly detrimental effect on Texas, which conducts an enormous cross-border trade with Mexico. Texas farmers were upset with the proposed tariffs. So were the state’s two Republican U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

The Trump administration sought to pressure Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants coming through that country into our country. I don’t know what Mexico has agreed to do. I hope it passes muster. I also hope it works.

Tariffs on Mexican goods inflicts far more harm within our borders than it does in Mexico.

environmental news

Lake Meredith makes a huge recovery

2 Comments

It’s nice to have your worst fears proven to be unfounded.

Lake Meredith sits north of Amarillo, providing water to several communities throughout the Texas Panhandle and the South Plains. There was a time not many years ago when the water level at the lake dropped to frighteningly low levels.

By 2013, the lake stood at 26 feet of depth. They closed marinas at the National Recreation Area. The water level dipped below the intake sources used to transport the water out of the lake basin.

Amarillo stopped taking water from the lake.

Man, I was worried about whether the lake could ever recover. Well, it has. It has come back in a major way. Park officials began eradicating the ultra-thirsty salt cedars they planted years ago to help stem erosion along the lakefront. The eradication effort seems to have helped.

The lake level now stands at 76 feet. The Panhandle has been getting drenched in recent days, or so I understand. The Canadian River watershed that feeds the lake has been getting plenty of rainfall.

The U.S. parks system that runs the lake has been increasing the recreational opportunities throughout the NRA to lure tourists to the area. They were doing so years ago when the water levels were so low.

Now it appears that the lake’s health is looking better all the time. Boating activity has returned.

OK, the lake levels aren’t yet at the historic high of 103 feet, which Meredith reached in 1973. At this rate, though, I am not going to bet against the lake getting pretty damn close to that level.

I am so happy to see Lake Meredith regain its health.

education news

Amarillo public school system needs to turn the corner

Where does the Amarillo Independent School District stand now that another elected school board member has packed it in?

Renee McCown, an embattled school trustee who got caught up in a controversy stemming from the resignation of a popular high school volleyball coach, has resigned. Her seat on the seven-member board is empty.

McCown became the focal point in an issue involving alleged meddling by an AISD parent over the way former coach Kori Clements was doing her job. Clements quit after a single season as Amarillo High volleyball coach.

The parent involved in the meddling allegedly was McCown, who — if the allegations are true — committed an egregious act of ethical misbehavior. School board trustees should not interfere with staffers seeking to do their job.

Do I know with absolute certainty that the trustee did what was alleged? No. However, her silence on the matter — let alone the silence from the entire board and the school administration — suggest a certain credibility to the allegations that have arisen. Thus, her continued service on the AISD board and the continuing questions that lingered over the community made her service untenable.

I don’t expect McCown, who is freed from any adherence to AISD policy requiring silence on “personnel matters,” to come forth and offer her side to a story that has roiled the AISD athletic community. She is as free to remain silent as she is free to speak out.

I do want to reiterate a critical point. School trustees who have children enrolled in the public school system they are elected or appointed to govern must keep their distance from educators who are hired to do certain jobs.

The AISD board will have to fill two seats soon with brand new members, joining the others who have just joined the board in the wake of the most recent election.

It is my sincere hope that they understand fully every single one of the boundaries they should not cross.

national news

Possible trail to be blazed toward impeachment of POTUS

Follow me on this journey for just a few moments. I think I’ve discovered a possible path that could lead to an impeachment of Donald J. Trump.

Congressional Democrats who chair key House committees are set to vote on whether to hold U.S. Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress.

A contempt of Congress decision by the full House doesn’t have much legal impact, given that Congress lacks the authority — as I understand it — to send the cops out with handcuffs to arrest individuals found in contempt.

However, a contempt resolution does open the door for litigation by Congress, which then can sue for records it seeks from the AG, the former White House counsel and, yes, even the president.

So, a lawsuit goes to a judge, or a panel of judges.

Then you have the possibility of the federal court system standing behind Congress, therefore ordering the president, AG and anyone else to do what Congress is asking. Turn over the records, or else!

What happens then if Donald Trump orders Barr to ignore the courts? What happens if the president gets an order from the courts to hand over, say, financial records to Congress?

Right there, ladies and gents, is a violation of the law.

We then would have a president of the United States who has broken federal law. He would have sanctioned others to do the same.

It occurs to me: Wasn’t that the pretext that GOP members of Congress used to impeach President Clinton, because he lied under oath to a federal grand jury about his relationship with a much-younger White House intern? Didn’t they insist in 1998 that we cannot have a president who breaks the law, who perjures himself?

They couldn’t sanction what they called “lawlessness” then. What about now? Would be OK this time with congressional Republicans for POTUS to ignore a duly constituted court order?

media news

Time of My Life, Part 35: This was one memorable encounter

1 Comment

News of the Beaumont Enterprise building heading to the “For Sale” block brings back a flood of memories of great times there and many memorable encounters I experienced while toiling in the Golden Triangle of Texas.

I want to share one of them here. It takes a bit to explain, so bear with me.

I was walking across the newsroom one day, heading for the third-floor elevator. I noticed a gentleman standing next to desk occupied by our newsroom secretary, the legendary Marie Richard, who was on the phone at that moment. I walked past the gentleman, then did a bit of a double-take.

I stood by the elevator, pushed the call button and waited. I then leaned around the corner, got Marie’s attention and whispered — apparently in a “stage whisper” sort of voice — “Is that Jim Lehrer?”, the longtime co-host of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS.

Marie shrugged silently, but then the man standing at her desk said, “Yes. It is.”

Oh, brother. I was, um, a bit embarrassed. I walked to Marie’s desk, extended my hand and introduced myself to one of the great broadcast journalists of his era.

Lehrer then began to tell me why he was standing in the Beaumont Enterprise newsroom. He needed to go the newspaper library, he said, to do research on a book he was writing about when he lived for a time in Beaumont as a youngster.

We walked back to the library and spent the better part of the next hour or so talking about this and/or that. I learned that Lehrer attended middle school and then French High School in Beaumont, that his father drove a bus (either Greyhound or Trailways, I cannot remember) and that Beaumont was one of many stops the Lehrer family made when young Jim was coming of age.

We hit it off well … I believe.

He wrote the book. I believe it was a memoir titled “A Bus of My Own,” published in 1992.

Lehrer returned the next year to be the keynote speaker at the Press Club of Southeast Texas annual luncheon. We shook hands at that event, too.

And, yes. Jim Lehrer remembered this chump editorialist who embarrassed himself at the elevator.

media news

Another community icon about to vanish

I am heartbroken, but not entirely surprised to hear this bit of news: The Beaumont Enterprise’s parent company is planning to sell the structure and move the newspaper into a more, um, suitable location hits me straight in the gut.

I got word of this decision Thursday through — that is correct — social media, which I suppose tells the story of the Beaumont Enterprise’s decline as the newspaper of record for the Golden Triangle region of Texas.

It is where my Texas journalism career got its start in 1984. It’s where I made tons of friends, learned about Texas’s unique political culture, and learned also that gumbo was far more than what you bought in a can of Campbell’s Soup.

My heart hurts over this news.

Social media have played a part in the Enterprise’s diminishing presence in the community. The paper I joined in 1984 was selling about 75,000 copies daily; its Sunday distribution totaled more than 80,000 copies. We sent papers way up into Deep East Texas and into Southwest Louisiana.

Then came the Internet. I left the Golden Triangle in January 1995 for greater opportunities in the Texas Panhandle. As the Internet began exerting its chokehold on print journalism in Amarillo, it began taking its toll in Beaumont as well.

The Enterprise, which once employed more than 300 individuals has seen its payroll dwindle to fewer than 70 people. Hurricane wind and rain destroyed the newspaper’s presses, forcing the paper to print its editions at the Houston Chronicle, another property owned by the Hearst Corp. The Enterprise’s production department disappeared; its circulation department has been reduced to virtually nothing.

Most tragically (in my view) the news staff has been decimated. I don’t know the exact count of reporters and editors on staff at the Enterprise, but I do know it’s far fewer than it was during the heyday of print journalism.

Hearst Corp. execs say they need to move into a location that is more suited for the Enterprise to compete in the digital age. I totally understand the business aspect of the decision, just as I understand why the Amarillo Globe-News — where I worked for nearly 18 years — has vacated its historic location.

There’s a glimmer of good news, which is that Hearst plans to keep the newspaper in downtown Beaumont, given the Enterprise’s longtime presence there. Publisher Mark Adkins said, “We believe in the community here, and want to continue our long history as a part of downtown,. It is important for us to stay here for those reasons. But it is also important to be able to pass on this building to someone that could use it for further development of downtown.”

However, none of this assuages the grief I feel at this moment reading about the pending departure of the Beaumont Enterprise from a building where I practiced my craft for nearly 11 years.

There’s no nice way to say it. This news really sucks, man.

International news

Here is what POTUS could have said

I am among the last people on Earth who Donald Trump would ask for advice, but I’ll offer a bit of unsolicited advice anyway.

Trump sat this week in front of rows of graves at Normandy, the site of the epic World War II invasion and battle that sealed the doom of the Third Reich. Fox News interviewer Laura Ingraham asked him some questions about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former special counsel Robert Mueller.

Ingraham was looking to push Trump’s hot button. He took the bait. He swallowed it whole and proceeded to dishonor the men buried behind him by offering a blistering partisan critique of Mueller and Pelosi. He said Mueller “made a fool of himself,” and called Pelosi a “disaster.”

Had the president asked me how to handle such a loaded set of questions, I would have counseled he say the following:

That’s a good question, Laura. However, I am not going to answer it now. Not here. Not in the presence of the men buried behind me.

I came to Normandy to honor the heroism of our brave fighting men and their comrades from Great Britain, Canada, France and many other nations involved in that great war.

I am going to speak very soon at a ceremony attended by some of the men who survived that horrible conflict on the beaches here. I don’t want to sully that event with a partisan commentary on matters back at home. 

It’s been said that “politics ends at the water’s edge.” A great Republican senator, Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, offered that bit of wisdom. I intend to follow it here.

Now, if you want to ask me about the commemoration we are offering here, I’ll be glad to answer that.

Politics? Let’s wait until we get home. OK?

The president didn’t say that. If only he could understand the solemnity of the moment and appreciate the sacrifice of the men who died in defense of our way of life.

education news

Time for a serious meeting of the minds on AISD board?

I am posting this item anticipating a resignation from the Amarillo Independent School District board of trustees.

The board is conducting a special meeting today to consider acceptance of a resignation letter from trustee Renee McCown. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill resignation, although McCown’s letter to the board makes no reference to the turmoil that has erupted in the district in recent months.

Indeed, McCown has been implicated deeply in the unrest that has roiled the AISD.

An Amarillo High girls volleyball coach quit; she blamed her resignation from a vaunted athletic program on parental interference; she said the board and administrators didn’t back her; she resigned; the board held a meeting and got an earful from angry constituents; the board accepted the coach’s resignation and has moved on.

Meanwhile, McCown was named in a complaint filed with the Texas Education Agency as the offending parent who allegedly harassed the coach over playing time allotted for the parent’s daughters on the Sandies’ volleyball team. The complaint and the allegations leveled against the trustee constitute a serious no-no, an egregious violation of governing ethics . . . in my humble view.

McCown has remained quiet, along with the rest of the board.

Her silence on the issue has spoken more loudly and vividly than perhaps she expected. I have commented several times on this matter, wanting the board to break its silence, wanting some accountability, seeking some transparency.

I expect the silence to continue even after McCown walks away from her public office. That would be a shame.

I am going to hope, though, that the school board along with the administration will have candid discussions among all the principals about the complaint that was filed, the reasons cited by the former volleyball coach, the TEA complaint filed by the constituent and the concerns of a parents group that is demanding more transparency.

Let them speak frankly to each other and let there be a clear understanding of the boundaries none of those trustees ever should cross.