Monthly Archives: December 2019

national news

Now that we’re talking just a bit about Barron Trump …

Barron Trump, the teenage son of Donald and Melania Trump, has been thrust into the news, if only for a little while.

Spoiler alert: I am not going to say a single negative thing in this blog post about Barron. Are we clear?

I do want to commend the young man’s parents. They have done a remarkable job of keeping this youngster out of public view. We rarely see Barron in the company of his parents, or his siblings.

Think of all the photo opportunities that prior first families took to make sure we saw the president and first lady in the company of their children. The Obamas were quite adept at showing us their daughters; the same can be said of the Bushes; the Clintons, too, were photographed often with their daughter, Chelsea, who we got to watch grow up before our eyes; the elder Bushes’ kids were grown; so were the Reagans’ children; we also saw a good bit of the Carters’ youngest child, Amy, who lived with them in the White House; I remember when the Fords moved in and their youngest child, Susan, became a de facto first lady, standing in at official functions when her mom was hospitalized with breast cancer.

Barron Trump is the youngest child of the president. He resides far outside the public’s prying eyes. He attends school and does whatever he does when he goes home.

I think his parents should be commended for the shield they have thrown around him, protecting him from the paparazzi who likely would go to any length to snap pictures of the youngster.

All of this is my way of saying that the ruckus caused by the professor who tossed Barron’s name out there during the impeachment hearing was made all the more remarkable by the fact that we have seen or heard so little about the young man since his father took office nearly three years ago.

national news

Trump takes it all back: Now he wants to hide tax returns from us

Donald Trump once said he would release his tax returns once the Internal Revenue Service completed what he called a “routine audit.”

Then he equivocated.

Oh, and then he said he would do what he promised to do in the first place.

Then he walked it back again.

Now he is digging in even more deeply. Manhattan (N.Y.) District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. subpoenaed Trump’s tax returns as part of the DA’s probe into the hush money payment Trump made to the porn star who said she had a fling with the future president. Trump denied the fling, but paid her the money to keep her quiet. About what? Go figure, man.

A judge ruled that the DA’s request is valid. Then the U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the release. Now the president is asking the high court to void the demand. He doesn’t want to do what he promised to do way back when he was running for the presidency.

Does this mean that Trump’s initial promise was as empty as most of the platitudes that fly out of his mouth?

I am one of those Americans who wants to see the returns. The president asks Congress to set tax policy, which means you and I have every right to know whether the president is paying his fair share of taxes. It’s been the custom of presidents and presidential candidates to release personal tax returns; the custom dates to 1976.

That’s why I have been yammering for those returns. I’ll keep yammering until we see ’em.

I feel the need to remind Donald Trump that he works for us. We are the bosses. Not him! I am one of those bosses who demands to see what I now believe my “employee” is hiding from me.

If it’s all above board, there shouldn’t be a reason in the world for Trump to ask the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf. Isn’t that how it should work?

local news, Sports news

Sod Poodles rack up another high honor

Let’s try this one on for size.

The Amarillo Sod Poodles, Texas League champs in their first year of existence, have been named the Minor League Team of the Year throughout the entire United States of America.

Let’s see. I believe that is a high honor that needs to be saluted.

An article on www.baseballamerica.com speaks to many aspects of the Sod Poodles’ spectacular initial season that warrant a Team of the Year designation.

The Sod Poodles have provided their parent club, the National League’s San Diego Padres, with plenty of talent. The AA Sod Poodles sold out a brand new downtown Amarillo ballpark, Hodgetown, for virtually every home game they played; manager Philip Wellman is no stranger to winning league championships, so he brought a winning attitude to Amarillo while leading the Sod Poodles to the Texas League title, defeating the defending champs in the process.

I have been cheering the Sod Poodles on since before they took the field in April of this year. I have endorsed the principle of bringing a minor league team to Amarillo that has a direct affiliation with a Major League team. The Padres have pledged to take good care of the Sod Poodles and, to my way of thinking, the first year of Sod Poodles hardball in Amarillo has provided plenty of proof that the Padres are true to their word.

Read the www.baseballamerica.com story here.

This is quite cool.

national news

She was wrong to mention Barron, but then again …

I won’t back away from my belief that Professor Pamela Karlan erred in mentioning Barron Trump, the president’s youngest child, in her testimony this week before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

She sought to make a quip about how the Constitution doesn’t allow presidents to create nobility among citizens, saying that even though he could name his son “Barron,” he couldn’t make him a “baron.” Critics jumped all over Karlan, who later apologized for her remark.

I want to add that she said nothing critical about the boy. There was no snarky intent directed at the teenager.

I also want to point out that previous first sons and daughters haven’t escaped the public’s barbs. Indeed, those children of presidents have absorbed plenty of hurtful punishment from cruel Americans.

Do you remember snide remarks made about, oh, Amy Carter, or Chelsea Clinton, or Barbara and Jenna Bush, or Malia and Sasha Obama? For that matter, do you remember, too, how critics of President Obama questioned his birth, his faith?

Look, children of presidents are off limits. Professor Karlan did not need to invoke Barron Trump’s name while making some sort of silly quip about constitutional limitations on the presidency. Then again, what she said was bland compared to the poisonous rhetoric that’s been thrown at presidential children over many years.

Let us just not go there. Hmm?

national news

Pelosi: It’s time to impeach Donald Trump

Well, there you have it. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared that the time has come to impeach the president of the United States.

She said this morning that she makes that assertion with sadness in her heart. Pelosi said Donald Trump has brought this moment onto himself.

Pelosi resisted the idea of impeaching the president for a good bit of time. Then came that infamous phone call and the request he made of a foreign government for personal political help. That did it.

The speaker has directed the Judiciary Committee to begin drafting articles of impeachment. So, the committee will proceed I presume with all deliberate speed.

I am going to take her at her word that she doesn’t “hate” Donald Trump. She fielded a reporter’s question today about whether she and here fellow Democrats hate the president and that their visceral feelings toward him are driving their push for impeachment. Pelosi fired back, telling the reporter to “don’t mess with me” by accusing her hating anyone. She said her Catholic upbringing taught her to “pray” for the president, which she said she does every day.

The impeachment process is now moving ahead. There will be no more delay. That suits me just fine.

The Intelligence and Judiciary committees have compiled enough evidence to lay out those articles of impeachment.

I am one patriotic American taxpayer who is ready to see this drama play out toward its conclusion.

International news

‘We’re the laughingstock of the world’

One of the many campaign mantras that Donald Trump would recite repeatedly on his way to winning the presidency in 2016 was that the United States had become “a laughingstock.”

He would bellow from campaign podiums that “We are the laughingstock of the world.” The crowds loved it. He would vow to make the world “respect” this country.

How is it working out? Not so good, I would say, were you to seek my opinion.

Trump’s recent carnival act while attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in London offers a case in point. The president decided he wouldn’t tolerate the snickers and whispered jokes among fellow heads of state at the NATO conference.

So, he bolted. He came home early after canceling a press conference.

Mr. President, the world is laughing now, out loud, in public, in front of us. Donald Trump has turned us into the laughingstock he accused us of being while running for the only public office he ever has sought.

So very sad.

International news

G7 going to meet at Camp David after all … imagine that

How about that? Donald Trump once sought to bring the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations to his glitzy resort in south Florida, only to run into a firestorm of criticism from those who accused him of seeking to profit personally from the presidency.

He withdrew the suggestion that the G7 summit occur at Doral Country Club.

So, where did he agree to play host to the summit? Camp David, Md., where presidents have taken foreign leaders for decades.

It’s a publicly owned place in the Catoctin Mountains near Washington, D.C. It’s known to possess a sort of quaint elegance quality. There’s plenty of room for the heads of these nations and their staffs to stay. Camp David has plenty of meeting-room space. Heads of state and government can get away to confer privately if they wish.

So, why didn’t the president settle on Camp David in the first place? He instead decided to make an issue out of being the host for the annual summit of the world’s wealthiest nations. Remember how he said that Doral was the best place in the entire United States to host this event? Of course it was a ludicrous assertion.

He has decided to welcome the G7 nations to a perfectly fine location. Camp David already has seen plenty of newsworthy events during its time as the official presidential retreat. Let there be more news to be made when the G7 nations’ leaders gather next year.

national news

Professor Karlan learns a tough lesson

“Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.”

So said first lady Melania Trump via Twitter in response to a university professor’s unfortunate invoking of Mrs. Trump’s son, Barron, during testimony today before the House Judiciary Committee.

Professor Karlan said that while it is all right for the president to name his son “Barron,” he couldn’t “make him a baron.”

That drew the expected criticism.

Frankly, she deserved to take the hit for the remark, for which she apologized.

Now, this likely won’t quell the critics. It should, but they’ll continue to yammer at her. We have learned in this political climate that apologies often never go far enough to absolve someone from the transgression they commit.

In this instance, Pamela Karlan’s mistake was clearly defined. Politicians’ children should be off limits … always! She crossed a line that was equally defined.

I am heartened to have listened to her apology as she made it. I am guessing Karlan might have known of the consequence of that mistake the moment she uttered it.

The heated debate in Washington is only going to get even hotter as this impeachment matter progresses toward a full vote in the House of Representatives. The president and his key aides have provided all by themselves the world with plenty of grist for which they can be criticized.

The president’s young son is way off limits.

International news

Trump makes a hash of another NATO gathering

Well now, that didn’t go too well.

Donald Trump was one of several heads of state and government attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then he decided he had enough of the treatment he was getting from his fellow world leaders gathered in London. So he left early, canceling an anticipated press conference.

Oh, my.

He started out by having a testy press availability with French President Emanuel Macron, who snapped back at Trump’s assertion that many Islamic State fighters come from France.

He called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced.”

Trump said France needs NATO more than the United States and chided the French for not paying more for their defense against potential enemies in Europe.

Other world leaders were heard on a “hot microphone” poking fun at the U.S. president … which I guess was too much for Trump to handle.

He left the meeting early and headed for home.

Goodness, gracious.

Is this how the president of the United States represents us on the world stage? Must we tolerate this kind of petulance? Must this nation be held up as an international laughingstock only because its president doesn’t know how to behave and act like the head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation?

He talks about impeachment constantly during his press sessions. He blasts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi openly while he’s overseas. Trump ridicules the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, hurling a variety of epithets at the man who is performing his constitutionally prescribed duties.

So, another foreign visit has gone badly.

Get to work, Mr. President, on whatever it is you do.

national news

Professor makes mistake by invoking name of POTUS’s son

Pamela Karlan is one of four constitutional legal scholars who testified today before the House Judiciary Committee.

She was sailing along with her remarks … and then she made a mistake. Professor Karlan said that Donald Trump couldn’t make his son Barron “a baron.”

Bad call, professor.

She drew criticism from Republicans on the committee, who scolded her for invoking the name of the president’s minor son into the debate over whether his father should be impeached by the House.

Karlan deserved the criticism, which also came from first lady Melania Trump, who said the children of politicians are off limits.

Yes, they are.

But then Karlan took a moment at the hearing to apologize for her remarks and to express regret that she made them. I am willing to accept her apology. However, I am not holding out much hope that her critics — and the president’s allies — will do the same.