Monthly Archives: October 2019

Donald Trump

Dallas MAGA rally looks as though it’ll be a doozy

If Donald Trump’s rally this week in Minnesota offers a preview of what we’ll get next week in Dallas, then we’re in for a doozy of a barnburner at the American Airlines Center.

The president got ’em fired up in the Twin Cities, saying that Joe Biden never was considered a “good senator” and the only reason he earned praise as vice president was because he figured out how to “kiss (President Obama’s) ass.”

Isn’t that swell? Isn’t that the kind of “rhetoric” one would expect to hear from the president of the United States?

No need to answer that. I got it figured out.

I intend to be among the crowd of folks gathered at the AAC next week to hear the president get all hot and bothered over impeachment, the Democrats, the “corrupt fake news” media, Robert Mueller, The Russia Probe, the “worst witch hunt in American history,” all that kind of crap.

The Minnesota rally got a bit of extra push because it was the first Trump re-election event since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry in the House. Oh, my, there has been a boatload of issues pouring forth.

I am anxious to hear how Trump plans to campaign for re-election if he’s impeached by the House, which now appears more likely than ever. I also want — but I do not expect — to hear Trump tout reasons to re-elect him. Instead, I fully expect to hear that his opponents all are corrupt, they’re “losers,” they can’t get over getting beaten in 2016.

I’ll be amongst ’em in Dallas. I’m getting giddy about it. Why is that? The MAGA rally, in the words of Tom Cruise in the film “Top Gun,” is certain to provide a “target-rich environment.”

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 78: Now he’s reading my mind … sheesh!

It’s getting weird around our house.

I have boasted about Toby the Puppy’s increasing vocabulary. He knows many words and response appropriately when he hears them. I have bragged about how he learned to use the doggie door leading out to our back yard.

Now there’s this …

I was going to ask my wife, in Toby the Puppy’s presence, whether we “should take … “ him for a stroll in the neighborhood.

When I said the words “should take,” Toby jumped straight up, ran to grab one of his toys, began wagging his tail vigorously and acted very much like he does when he hears the word “walk.”

Do you get my drift? He now is reading my mind. He is anticipating — correctly, I need to add — what I am about to say.

This pooch is continuing to amaze me. Yes, he makes us laugh every single day. He is continuing as well to astound me with his growing command of the English language.

national news

Former national security adviser speaks the blunt truth

H.R. McMaster is no longer beholden to Donald John Trump, who hired him as national security adviser to the president of the United States.

I mention this because McMaster, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who got the boot from Trump over policy disagreements within the West Wing, spoke the truth today in answering a direct question: Is it appropriate for the president to ask a foreign power to interfere in our electoral process?

McMaster’s response? “Of course it’s not appropriate.”

This is worth noting because some key Republican lawmakers — who also are not beholden to the president — cannot answer that question. Joni Ernst of Iowa couldn’t speak the truth. Nor could Cory Gardner of Colorado. Jim Jordan of Ohio danced all around the question. None of them answered the question.

Why the reticence? I guess they are frightened over what Trump might do in response.

Then again, in theory they are answerable only to the people who elect them. They are not answerable to the president, who presides over a separate branch of government. The executive and legislative branches are “co-equal” in power. They are supposed to serve as checks on each other.

However, we are left now to hear only from those of the president’s political party who no longer serve in government to speak the proverbial “truth to power.”

Shameful.

local news

That’s why they’re called ‘exploratory committees’

What do you know about this? Texas state Sen. Pat Fallon, a Republican from Prosper, has decided against running for the U.S. Senate in 2020.

He had formed an exploratory committee to, um, explore the possibilities of challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary.

He’s decided to stay in the Texas Senate and not expose his wife and young sons to the rigors of trying to pull Sen. Cornyn even farther to the right.

It’s a smart move, Sen. Fallon.

For starters, Sen. Cornyn is pretty far right already. He is a reliable opponent of gun control measures, of abortion rights, of the Affordable Care Act. That’s just three issues.

Trust me on this: Pat Fallon didn’t need to seek to make Texas’s senior U.S. senator even more conservative. So he’ll forgo a race against Cornyn.

It just goes to show that these efforts occasionally produce the kind of result that Pat Fallon has found. It’s why they’re called “exploratory committees.”

national news

‘They didn’t help us’ during World War II

Are you fu**ing kidding me, Mr. President?

You justify abandoning our allies in the fight against the Islamic State because they didn’t “help us” during World War II.” You said, “They didn’t help us in the Second World War; they didn’t help us with Normandy. With all of that being said, we like the Kurds.”

Oh, brother. The stupidity of your comments simply defies understanding.

Kurdistan is a region that sprawls across several countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria. The Kurds comprise about 30 million people. They do not function under a formal government. Kurdistan also is a long way from Normandy, France.

However, Mr. President, they are a proud and sophisticated people. They have been devoted allies of ours in the fight to eliminate the Islamic State. Thousands of them have died fighting ISIS alongside our military personnel.

But you have left them to fight not only ISIS, but apparently the Turks, who have launched attacks in northern Syria. The Turks hate the Kurds. How this tragic circumstance plays out is anyone’s guess.

You have incurred the wrath of politicians in both parties here, Mr. President.

And now you add to it all by speaking stupidly about Kurds’ absence from the beaches at Normandy.

That is idiotic, Mr. President. Oh, wait! I shouldn’t be surprised.

national news

Impeachment has nothing to do with success

Donald Trump keeps yapping and yammering the same thing repeatedly.

House Democrats “can’t impeach” a president who presides over the “best economy in history,” or someone who has managed to “restore and rebuild our military that had been depleted,” or is “making America great again.”

Actually, the House of Representatives can impeach a successful president. The House did that very thing in 1998 when it impeached President Clinton for far less than what is on the table today. Clinton lied to a grand jury about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. That was all House Republicans needed to hear. They impeached the president, who then stood trial in the Senate, which acquitted him.

What were the presidential atmospherics at the time? Oh, let’s see: The president, working with a GOP-controlled Congress, managed to cobble together a balanced federal budget; private-sector payrolls were exploding; we were at peace, relatively speaking.

The House still impeached the president.

You see, the president’s job performance has not a damn thing to do with whether he deserves to be impeached.

I am more than willing to accept that Donald Trump has presided over a successful economic condition. However, the House is considering whether to impeach him over improper contacts he has had with foreign governments and whether he sought foreign help in his re-election effort and whether he has asked foreign governments for dirt he can toss on the campaign of a potential presidential foe, former Vice President Joe Biden.

I won’t argue whether the current economic prosperity is facing any risk of imploding. As I said, the economy is not the issue. Nor is world peace. Nor are any of the issues on which a president can claim credit.

Impeachment is a narrowly focused political exercise. Its aim is to determine whether a president has committed a “high crime and misdemeanor” while serving in the nation’s highest office. There appears to be ample evidence of the commission of such a transgression.

None of this will result in Donald Trump changing his tune. He’ll keep blathering about what a great job he has done, apparently thinking that enough Americans will buy into it and suggest that all that happy talk means it’s all right for a president to solicit foreign interference in our electoral process.

Actually, it isn’t all right. It is an offense worthy of impeachment, conviction and removal from office.

local news

Might the Herring have a future, too?

The Barfield Building renovation is proceeding toward a spring opening of the one-time rotting hulk of a structure. It will be reborn as a “boutique” hotel.

By all means, downtown Amarillo, Texas, has much more work ahead of it. I am going to wonder aloud whether there might be something in the wind regarding the Herring Hotel Plaza, which sits a few blocks north of the Barfield.

This isn’t an original thought. I heard it from a little birdie/Amarillo snitch the other day, but I want to share it with y’all.

Amarillo city officials are looking around for someplace to relocate City Hall. They say they want to find an existing structure where they could move what’s left of the city administration still operating at the current City Hall into another location. Much of the administrative work is being done at the Jim Simms building, leaving City Hall with essentially a skeleton crew.

So, here’s a thought: Might there be any interest in relocating City Hall into the Herring Hotel site, along with a mixed-use development that could occupy the rest of the once-grand structure?

City officials are maintaining a code of silence on what they’re thinking, or so I have been advised. They are pondering whether to present a bond issue proposal to voters next spring that would total more than $300 million. They want to renovate the Civic Center, dress up the Santa Fe Railroad Depot and, oh yeah, relocate City Hall.

The Herring Hotel has been dark for a very long time. Its owner, a retired academician named Bob Goodrich, has sought to find a suitable developer; he has come up empty. Goodrich pays the taxes annually on the building and tries to keep it secure against trespassers and transients who seek shelter from the elements.

The Herring used to be the place to go, to see and to be seen. It played host to lavish parties and once was a first-class hotel.

Downtown Amarillo does not lack suitable locations for City Hall. I understand there’s some interest in some bank structures scattered around the downtown district.

However, would it not be a masterful public relations stroke of genius to identify a way to convert the Herring into a usable office building, combined with housing and perhaps a smattering of retail business?

I believe there remains a significant bit of nostalgia for the Herring around Amarillo. Heck, I even have changed my mind about the building. I used to believe it needed a wrecking ball; I no longer hold that belief. Surely there can be some use for the structure.

If City Hall is committed to relocating into an existing downtown structure, officials have a grand building looming a few blocks away.

local news

Barfield Building rebirth: a major surprise

There’s no way in the world to overstate the surprise I felt when I heard the news, that a developer had decided to remake the Barfield Building in downtown Amarillo and turn it into a “boutique hotel” with the Marriott name.

Yep, it was a shock. The picture you see with this blog post comes from Neal Nossaman, a Facebook friend of mine who posted it on the social media site.

The Barfield is going to open in the spring. Crews have been working on gutting the interior, gussying up the exterior and turning the rotted-out building into a hotel; it also will have, as I understand, some retail space as well.

I would see the Barfield Building over many years continue to deteriorate. It sat vacant for more than four decades. It became a haven for transients who needed shelter from the heat and the cold.

The Barfield had a series of owners who tried and failed to secure funding for renovating the structure. Some of the owners were out of towners; some were locals. They couldn’t pull it together.

Then suddenly and shockingly, there was this announcement a year ago that Marriott had signed on to re-do the building. Plans emerged to turn this structure into this “boutique” hotel. I’m still not sure how a “boutique” hotel actually differs from a regular hotel. Whatever. The work has progressed.

They have a completion date in view.

My surprise notwithstanding, I simply am thrilled to see a once-rotting hulk of a building get new life.

Amazing, man.

entertainment news

Stand firm, Ellen, in your friendship with ‘W’

I hereby endorse Ellen DeGeneres in her declaration that she is friends with former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush.

The comedian is taking flak because she happened to attend a Dallas Cowboys football game at AT&T Stadium, where she sat next to the former first couple, had a few laughs and enjoyed each other’s company.

DeGeneres noted out loud the other day that it does strange for a “gay liberal” such as herself to be friends with a “conservative” such as President Bush. Which makes me respond: So what? 

Ellen is taking heat from some in the entertainment industry. Actor Mark Ruffalo commented via Twitter that Bush’s policies are anathema to the “kindness” that DeGeneres mentioned in her comments about her friendship with “W.”

Look, I get it. I am not “friends” with the former president, although I have had the pleasure of meeting him three times over the years. The first time was on an elevator at the 1988 GOP convention in New Orleans; the second time was in 1995, when I interviewed the then-new Texas governor at his office at the State Capitol; the third time was in Amarillo in 1998 when he was running for re-election as governor.

My impression of President Bush is clear: He is the kind of guy I would love to have a beer with … except that he no longer drinks alcohol. He is affable, jovial, personable, humble and all-round good guy. His politics stink, but as Mitt Romney once said during the Al Smith Memorial Dinner in 2012 when he appeared on the same dais as President Barack Obama against whom he was running, “There is more to life than politics.”

So it is with Ellen DeGeneres and President Bush.

Stand firm, Ellen.

national news

Trump mounting strange defense

Donald Trump’s reaction to the looming impeachment decision in the U.S. House of Representatives reminds me of the tactic he employed when special counsel Robert Mueller was examining The Russia Thing.

The president then chose to denigrate, disparage and all but defame Mueller’s probe, all the while proclaiming he did nothing wrong during the 2016 campaign.

My thought then was: If he is innocent of wrongdoing, why not just turn everything over and let the proverbial chips fall? He didn’t. Mueller finished his work, essentially absolving Trump of colluding with Russians who attacked our electoral system, but leaving the door open for Congress to decide the obstruction matter.

Now the House is marching toward impeaching the president. He calls the House action “unconstitutional,” which of course it isn’t. He has declared he won’t cooperate in any way, then changed his mind and said he would cooperate if the House treats him “fairly,” whatever that means.

My question today is similar to what it was then: If he did nothing wrong, is he hiding something he doesn’t want anyone to see?

Just cooperate, Mr. President, and let the House do the job that the U.S. Constitution empowers it to do.