William Barr: biggest disappointment of Trump Cabinet

I wanted William Barr to be a stellar choice to become U.S. attorney general. I wanted him to demonstrate that Donald Trump was capable of selecting someone with high honor, integrity and gravitas.

He has disappointed me in the extreme.

Barr came to the AG post after serving in that position for President Bush 41. He distinguished himself well serving as the head of Justice Department near the end of President Bush’s single term. My hope when he emerged as the successor to Jeff Sessions was that he would do so yet again.

Instead, he has done so many things that have shattered my misplaced optimism.

He disagreed with the inspector general’s findings that the FBI was not motivated by partisan bias when it began its probe into the Russian attack on our electoral system; he continues to insist that the FBI “spied” on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign; he misrepresented special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings into “The Russia Thing”; he said Mueller cleared Trump of “collusion,” when Mueller did nothing of the kind.

Former AG Eric Holder has said that Barr is “unfit” to serve as attorney general. I fear he is right.

William Barr took an oath in effect to be the people’s lawyer. He has become the president’s personal legal bag man.

He is the No. 1 disappointment to emerge from the Trump morass.

Memo to City Hall: Reveal location of proposed new site

Amarillo City Hall isn’t going to ask me for political advice, given that I don’t live in Amarillo, but I’ll offer it anyway.

If the city proceeds with a bond issue next year to determine whether residents want to re-do the Civic Center and relocate City Hall to a new location, the city needs to reveal to voters which site it has in mind to move its administrative offices.

One of my Amarillo spies has told me the city hasn’t yet made that decision public, if it’s made it at all. My spy believes the city might want to keep it secret while it negotiates with whomever owns whatever structure the city wants to acquire.

I believe the city needs to tell residents where it wants to go if it is going to ask them to pony up $300 million-plus on an array of public improvement projects.

To keep that information quiet would ring the death knell for the city’s efforts to vacate its current City Hall building for another existing building in downtown Amarillo.

Residents there, as I understand it, remain a bit skeptical of the city’s claim of transparency.

I also am willing to argue that the city shouldn’t ask voters to approve a relocation if it doesn’t have a site in mind. Part of the cost of that bond issue is going to include preparing a new building to become home to many city administrative functions. How in the world does the city spell out the cost if it doesn’t have an idea of where it intends to move and what it intends to do with whatever property it is considering for purchase?

A citywide bond election in 2020 is going to be a big deal. The Civic Center improvements appear to be warranted. The city also wants to revamp the Santa Fe Depot structure just east of the Civic Center.

A City Hall relocation remains a problem, particularly if city officials don’t reveal to the “bosses,” the voters who pay the bill, where they intend to put a new city office structure.

Resolved to make no new year’s resolutions

A new year is about to dawn. Many of us will resolve to do better in the coming year than we’ve done in the year that’s about to fade away forever.

We’ll resolve to eat better, to exercise more, to be kinder, to enjoy life, to quit smoking/chewing/vaping or anything else that harms our body, lose weight, get a better job … sheesh!

I long ago made a new year’s resolution of a different sort. I resolved to make no such resolution.

Over the years I’ve made my share of them. I cannot recall ever fulfilling a single resolution. They all fell short. It’s my fault. I lack the discipline to see a resolution through to completion. Except that by declining to make a resolution to usher in the new year I can guarantee a certain level of success. I know that’s perverse, but it’s the truth.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am light years away from perfect. I am packing too much weight. I don’t get enough sleep each night. I get a bit grouchy at times. Some readers of this blog think I am misguided politically.

I celebrated a landmark birthday the other day. I turned 70 years of age. I find it strange in the extreme to think about my age. Dad didn’t live to see 60; Mom died at 61. They never got old. I’m already there, although I am blessed with good — if not great — health.

Therein lies what might constitute something of a resolution, which is to resolve to keep doing the things that have given me 70 years of good health.

The rest of it should take care of itself … I hope.

Bonnen broke the law, but let’s not prosecute him

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This blog post was published initially on the KETR-FM website.

I guess the verdict is in on Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s secret meeting with a right-wing activist.

The speaker likely broke a campaign finance law when he met with Empower Texans guru Michael Quinn Sullivan, offered up the names of 10 fellow Republican legislators that Empower Texans could try to defeat in the 2020 election and then offered the right-wing PAC a media pass, giving the PAC immediate access to House members working on the floor of the chamber.

The House General Investigating Committee issued the report, then closed its investigation.

What should happen now? My hope – and it’s just me speaking for myself – is that Bonnen can retire quietly at the end of next year and disappear into the tall grass, never to be seen or heard from again in public life. There need not be a criminal investigation.

General Investigating Committee Chairman Morgan Meyer, a Dallas Republican, suggested that the report precludes any criminal investigation, even though Bonnen likely broke the law.

According to the Texas Tribune: Bonnen “likely violated” a section of the Texas Government Code, according to Meyer, who was reading from the report … — but advisers in the report said the law provided no “independent statutory consequences” for a state official who breaches it.

That section states that a state officer or employee should not “accept or solicit any gift, favor or service that might reasonably tend to influence the officer or employee in the discharge of official duties, or that the officer or employee knows or should know is being offered with the intent to influence the officer’s or employee’s official conduct.

I get all that. Here’s the deal, though: Bonnen took a lot of political heat and pushback from his fellow Republicans, about 30 of whom demanded he resign the House speakership. He at first denied the meeting with Sullivan. Then Sullivan produced a recording of the meeting. He outed Bonnen, who then announced he wouldn’t seek re-election to his House seat in Angleton in 2020.

Good riddance! That ought to be enough of a punishment for the speaker who double-crossed his supposed allies in the Texas House of Representatives.

As the saying goes: This case is closed. Let’s move on and let the next Texas House of Representatives select a speaker who will remain faithful to any pledge he or she makes to work with his colleagues and avoid stabbing them in the back.

An ‘innocent’ POTUS keeps acting like a guilty POTUS

Here we are as a most tumultuous year is about to head for the sunset of history.

Donald Trump is going to stand trial eventually in 2020. He says the House of Representatives impeachment of him is a sham, a hoax and a witch hunt. He declares that he has done nothing wrong.

However, he is continuing to deny the Senate any access to witnesses who, it would stand to reason if you believe the president, would offer testimony that is favorable to him.

I keep wondering: Is this the conduct of a man with nothing to hide, nothing to keep from public view, nothing that would change any Republican minds?

The House impeached Trump on charges that he abused the power of his office by seeking political help from a foreign government. He did so in a phone call with the Ukrainian president. The White House released a memo of that phone call. He says it as clear as can be, but he calls the phone call “perfect.”  The House also impeached him on obstruction of Congress. How does one dispute that, given that Trump has demanded that no key White House aides answer congressional subpoenas, denying Congress the ability to do its constitutional duties relating to oversight of the executive branch of government?

The president and his GOP allies say the evidence doesn’t stack up. I disagree with that view but that’s just my view.

I cannot grasp the notion of a president continuing to deny access to key witnesses if he is as innocent of wrongdoing as he insists.

I want this trial to be completed. I do not want a drawn-out extravaganza that will become a sideshow. I do want witnesses to testify. I also want there to be any additional evidence submitted that will enable senators to make a more clear-headed decision on whether the president stays in office.

The president says he’s innocent. The president’s actions are those of a guilty man.

Welcome to another tumultuous year.

Owner/GM needs to fire himself, but he won’t

The owner/general manager of the Dallas Cowboys football team is making a spectacle of himself — no surprise there! — as the media ponder his next coaching move.

Jerry Jones is the owner of the NFL team. He is likely to fire head coach Jason Garrett, whose contract expired when time ran out at the end of Sunday’s game against the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys won the game but aren’t going to the league playoffs.

Garrett is going to leave the team he has coached. Jones will find someone else.

But the owner/GM is going to make it all about him as he postures, preens and pontificates about how he intends to make the Cowboys great again. Does that sound like someone else in the news? Well, sure it does.

Jones is entitled to own the team. I don’t begrudge him that. I just wish he would be a more “conventional” pro sports team owner: sit in the shadows, pay the salaries of your executives, let a real general manager make football decisions such as hiring a coach.

The owner need not get mixed up in the middle of running a pro football team. It’s way more complicated than making all that money to buy the team in the first place.

Hmm. Does that also sound like anyone we know, too?

Politics runs head first into justice

I wrote once on this blog about how politics is likely to drive a potential impeachment of Donald J. Trump. Well, the House of Representatives impeached the president on a virtual party-line vote and the Senate is now going to put him on trial.

The outcome will be decided, yep, on party lines.

Which brings up this point: Are senators free to vote their “conscience,” to base their decision solely on the evidence they have before them? Or must they worry what the folks back home think of what they are about to do?

I present to you U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala.

Sen. Jones, who is running for re-election next year after narrowly defeating a Republican opponent, is facing the Mother of All Political Quandaries. Does he vote to convict Trump on obstruction of Congress or on abuse of power and face the wrath of Alabama voters, most of whom support the president? Or does he challenge them by declaring that he has voted to convict based on what he has seen and heard?

I believe Jones wants to keep his Senate seat. I also believe he is, as most pundits have posited, the most vulnerable Senate Democrat facing re-election this year. I don’t know much about Jones. I don’t know what makes him tick. I cannot measure his political courage. I don’t know if he’s a “maverick,” a loyal party guy or someone who wants to cover his own backside at any cost.

This is what I mean when I mention how politics runs head first into the quest for justice in matters of impeaching a president. Politics clearly is keeping Republicans from bucking their own partisan interest; it also is keeping most Democrats in line as well.

We have sticky wickets. Then we have matters such as this.

I believe Sen. Jones is going to lose some sleep over this one.

Guns have their place; still not sure it’s in church

There once was a time when I opposed concealed handgun carry legislation in Texas. My fear at the time was that there might be shootouts at traffic intersections between motorists who would turn fender-benders into something quite different.

Those fears have not materialized. I have recognized the absence of such roadside mayhem. I also have acknowledged my acceptance of concealed carry permits in Texas, if not an outright endorsement of them.

Does that carry over to allowing firearms in houses of worship? Yes, we had a shootout in a church in White Settlement today. The gunman killed a parishioner and seriously wounded another one before churchgoers returned fire and killed the bad guy.

One relatively successful incident involving firearms in churches does not, in my mind, make for a successful policy. I still fear the consequence of a pistol-packing worshiper opening fire in response to a gunman and missing the target badly, resulting in collateral casualties.

Plus, there just is something bizarre and unholy about allowing worshipers to bring loaded firearms with them while they take communion and say their prayers to God.

The day might come when I’ll accept the notion of guns in the church pew. Just not yet.

In the meantime, I’ll pray that the White Settlement churchgoer recovers from the wound inflicted. I also will express my gratitude from some distance that the parishioners who took out the gunman knew what to do when the gunfire erupted.

Yes, Rep. Lewis, your nation prays for you

If there is a politician in this country who is more revered than U.S. Rep. John Lewis, well … I don’t know who that would be.

Lewis is a civil rights icon and I use the term with all the heft that accompanies it. He stood with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He has been beaten nearly to death by police officers as he sought to mount “civil” protests for the cause of civil and human rights. He has served his congressional district in Georgia with distinction and honor for more than three decades.

He now is fighting Stage IV pancreatic cancer. He has drawn words of encouragement from House colleagues and two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Rep. Lewis said this when announcing his diagnosis:

“I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.

“This month in a routine medical visit, and subsequent tests, doctors discovered Stage IV pancreatic cancer. This diagnosis has been reconfirmed.

“While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance. 

“So I have decided to do what I know to do and do what I have always done: I am going to fight it and keep fighting for the Beloved Community. We still have many bridges to cross. 

“To my constituents: being your representative in Congress is the honor of a lifetime. I will return to Washington in coming days to continue our work and begin my treatment plan, which will occur over the next several weeks. I may miss a few votes during this period, but with God’s grace I will be back on the front lines soon. 

“Please keep me in your prayers as I begin this journey.”

Yes, Rep. Lewis, many millions of your fellow Americans will keep you in our prayers.

Shooting incident turns out OK, however …

Does a single shooting involving a gunman who was shot dead by those with handgun permits make me believe that it’s OK to allow guns into houses of worship?

No it doesn’t. However, it does give me pause to offer a word of gratitude that church congregants had the presence of mind to end a spasm of gun violence quickly before it could get much worse.

A shooter opened fire this morning in a church at White Settlement, Texas, a Fort Worth suburb. He shot two people in the church, one of whom died; the other suffers from life-threatening injuries.

Then some worshipers who happened to be carrying weapons opened fire on the gunman, killing him on the spot.

Texas legislators recently approved a law that allows concealed handguns in houses of worship. Only those who are licensed to carry them will be allowed to pack the weapons while worshiping.

I am not yet persuaded that this is a good idea. However, I certainly am grateful that the bystanders who were in the church sanctuary had the skill to end the nightmare quickly. Such relatively good fortune — and I use that term with extreme caution — isn’t necessarily a guarantee that future incidents will produce similar results.

White City Police Chief J.P. Bevering called the congregants who killed the gunman “heroic.” Yes, they most surely are. The rest of the congregation at West Freeway Church of Christ owe them an eternal debt of thanks.