Monthly Archives: December 2019

local news

Still waiting to hear from my congressman

Gosh, it’s been about a month since I wrote my congressman a letter. I asked him directly for a response to a question that had been nagging at me. He hasn’t delivered his answer.

Van Taylor is a Plano Republican representing the Third Congressional District of Texas. He’s been in office only since this past January. Maybe he’s been too busy trying to find his way around the massive U.S. Capitol Building.

I asked him why he voted “no” on sending the impeachment inquiry into the public domain. He and other Republican lawmakers had yapped about so-called “secrecy” regarding the closed-door testimony the House Intelligence Committee was receiving from witnesses.

Taylor said “no” to taking it to the public. How come? I want to know.

OK, I’ve been a little busy the past couple of weeks. I still intend to phone his office. I have a couple of business cards from key staffers. I plan to call his Plano district office, the one closest to his constituents. I happen to one of them.

Van Taylor, who I have described as — and still believe him to be — an earnest young man. He’s a Marine Corps veteran who saw duty during the Iraq War. I certainly salute his veteran status.

I do not salute his recalcitrance over this issue of taking the Trump impeachment inquiry into the public. I need to know why he voted against bringing it into the open.

I’m his boss. He answers to me, not to Donald Trump.

media news

Facebook becoming infected with negativity during The Season

I’m getting a bit of buzz from my network of Facebook friends who are complaining about the negativity they’re seeing on the social medium as we enter the Christmas holiday season.

I am going to agree with them … to a point.

I use Facebook to distribute by blog. Facebook will get this post, too, as soon as I’m finished with it. I won’t refrain from posting political commentary on this blog, which then will shoot into cyberspace via Facebook and other social media. What it produces in the way of commentary, of course, depends on who’s responding to any particular blot post.

What I have sought to do during my involvement with Facebook is to avoid getting tangled up in too much negative give and take. I post the comments, folks respond either happily or angrily. If they like what they read, that’s nice. If they dislike what I post, that’s fine, too.

As for the complaints that are sneaking into some of my Facebook friends’ comments, I will honor their concern only insofar as to avoid engaging in rhetorical swordplay with those who oppose whatever thought I toss out there.

I acknowledge also that I occasionally get a bit too wrapped up in Facebook rants. I read ’em. I might acknowledge some of ’em. I won’t get into the type of name-calling and insult games that some of my cyber acquaintances play.

Go for it, boys and girls. Just count me out.

International news

U.S. is shamefully MIA at climate change conference

ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images

They’re convening an international conference on climate change.

As my dear late Mom would say, I’ll give you three guesses on which nation is missing from that conference … but the first two guesses don’t count.

That’s right. The United States of America ain’t there.

We should be. Why? Well, let’s see. We’re the most industrialized nation on Earth. We are the world leader in scientific research. Our factories pour out tons of carbon emissions into the air annually. We occupy the bulliest of pulpits of any nation the planet.

But we’re not there because the president of the United States, Donald John Trump, calls climate change a “hoax.” Trump yanked the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, saying it would be too burdensome on U.S. businesses. The accord carries the names of virtually every country on the planet … except the U.S. of A.

This is how the president intends to “make America great again” or “keep America great.” He wants to isolate the nation from a world made “smaller” in a proverbial sense by modern technology.

The United States made great strides in weaning ourselves of dependence on foreign-produced fossil fuels largely through development of alternate energy resources and, yes, more production of oil and natural gas. Trump wants to develop more “clean coal” and wants to drill for even more petroleum-based products. How is that going to stem the warming of the planet and the changing of its climate? Short answer: It won’t.

We are shaming ourselves by failing to attend the conference that seeks to find remedies to what has become established as an existential threat to every nation on Earth.

As the world’s pre-eminent economic power, we need to be heard and we need to listen to what our Earthly neighbors are telling us.

national news

Trying to understand why it’s different now … with Trump

I don’t understand many things. They fly over my head and I am left just to scratch it and say, “Huh?”

One of those items concerns the pending impeachment of Donald Trump. Congressional Republicans are digging in against the impeachment; congressional Democrats are just as fervent in their belief that Trump has committed an impeachable act … or three.

I keep circling back to the most recent presidential impeachment, which occurred in 1998. Bill Clinton got impeached by the House of Representatives, which then was led by the GOP. Republicans had been looking for a reason to file articles of impeachment against the Democratic president almost from the moment he took office in 1993.

Then they found that reason: He lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The president took an oath to tell the truth; he violated that oath; the GOP said “aha!” … there’s your impeachable offense.

So the House impeached him. Why? Because he was too embarrassed to admit to messing around with a much-younger woman.

It had not a thing to do with his governance. It affected not a single policy decision. There were no matters of state or statecraft involved. He allowed a young woman to, um, pleasure him and then lied about it before a duly constituted grand jury.

One of the House impeachment “managers,” a young congressman named Lindsey Graham, bellowed righteously that an impeachment was necessary to restore the dignity of the office, which the president had besmirched with his conduct.

That congressman is now a senator and will be one of 100 jurors who will decide the fate of a fellow Republican, Donald Trump. His attitude now? He’s not interested in seeing any of the classified testimony from the witnesses who talked to the House Intelligence Committee. He’s made up his mind. The impeachment inquiry is a “joke,” he said.

Case closed. He don’t need to hear no stinking evidence. 

Therein rests the source of my confusion. Republicans who wanted to pry into the nitty gritty of a president’s personal life now sound as if they are disinterested in knowing the details into how another president might have compromised national security over a political favor he sought from a foreign government.

Which is the worse allegation? I would place my money on the possibility that my president offered a bribe to a foreign leader, which the U.S. Constitution spells out — by name — as a crime against the state.

I just don’t get it.

local news

Needing some answers about all this highway work

Photo by Michael O’Keefe/First Response Photography.

My wife and I moved to Collin County a year ago, then relocated within the county from Fairview to Princeton.

We’ve learned a good bit about Princeton since we planted our roots deeply into a subdivision under construction just south of U.S. 380. One of the things we learned is that the community is in a major growth mode.

How do we know? The highway is under reconstruction and I am getting the word from some of my snitches that it ain’t going to stop any time soon.

They built a median along the highway to curb the number of crashes that were occurring, or so I have been told. The raised concrete median aims to keep people in their own lane.

I am now in search of some answers about the highway makeover and what it means to residents who live here. I am hearing some grumbling about folks who are upset about all the construction; they are frustrated by the constant heavy east-west traffic along U.S. 380; I am hearing about residents griping about the inability to enter the highway from side streets … meaning they want more stop lights.

I have developed a couple of sources at the Texas Department of Transportation, the state agency that is rebuilding the highway. The Princeton city manager has told me that as soon as the median is finished through the length of the city that TxDOT will commence work adding a lane on each side of the highway; they will turn it from a four-lane to a six-lane thoroughfare.

My wife and I figure we bought our house at just the right time. The city is small at the moment; it won’t stay that way for very long. We are reckoning that our real estate investment will pay off handsomely … whenever we no longer are living in the house.

However, the traffic does present some immediate concern. The snoopy part of my emotional makeup compels me to ask around.

I need to know what in the world is going to happen with this highway work. When will it end? And to what end is this work going to finish?

national news

Trump decides to forgo offer to defend himself at Judiciary hearing

Who would’ve thought this might happen? Well, I guess I would have thought it.

Donald Trump and the White House legal team has informed the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Jerrold Nadler (pictured) that the president won’t participate in the panel’s hearing Wednesday over whether to impeach him. They’re going to rely exclusively on Trump’s defenders on the committee.

Well, this ought to be just special.

Judiciary Committee Democrats have given the president the opportunity to defend himself against allegations that he has abused the power of his office by soliciting a foreign government for personal political help; that charge lies at the heart of the pending impeachment of the president.

Did the president want to take part? Nope. He’s going to stand behind the deflecting shields held by the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Jim Jordan of Ohio. I’m sure both of them, among others will do their best to change the focus away from the president’s conduct to other matters, such as impugning the motives of those who have leveled the accusations.

Do you know what that means? It means a repeat of what we heard from GOP defenders on the House Intelligence Committee, which launched the impeachment inquiry before handing off to the Judiciary Committee.

And the president will accuse House Democrats of refusing to grant him a fair hearing.

Amazing.

local news

Awaiting holiday season in new surroundings

It’s one thing to move to a new community, a new home and becoming acquainted with new surroundings during most of the year.

It’s another thing altogether when you welcome the Christmas holiday amid all that newness. Why, even Toby the puppy — as you can see in the photo — is wearing some new Christmas threads.

So a new holiday awaits my wife and me — along with the Puppy — in our new digs in Collin County. We spent 23 or so Christmas seasons ensconced in our home in southwest Amarillo. We grew comfortable in that home, which we had built in the fall and early winter of 1996.

Indeed, our first Christmas in that home was one for the ages. We closed on the house on Dec. 22, 1996, took possession of the place, then had most of our worldly possessions hauled out of storage where it had laid dormant for nearly two years.

We spent Christmas opening up boxes and getting reacquainted with pictures, furniture, doo-dads, knickknacks and assorted gadgets and gizmos we had locked away.

Our Christmas tree that year was a potted Norfolk pine we brought with us from Beaumont. We strung a few lights around it, tossed a little tinsel on it and surrounded it with gift packages.

We moved from Randall County to Collin County in the spring of 2018. Then earlier this year we decided to look for a house to purchase. We found one in Princeton, closed the deal and moved in. That all took place in late February.

Now our first Christmas in our latest new home is coming up fast. It won’t have quite the same element of rediscovery as the holiday I described earlier. However, it will be memorable nonetheless. Of that I am certain.

My biggest challenge now rests with trying to decide how to string lights around our new house. Wish me luck.

national news, Uncategorized

Set to make impeachment history once again

Here we are, on the cusp of another politically historic event awaiting the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House Intelligence Committee is going to hand off to the Judiciary Committee, which then will decide whether to file articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump.

This shouldn’t be a close call. However, it’s likely to become a partisan vote, with Democrats voting to impeach the president and Republicans saying “no.”

I’m out here in the Peanut Gallery. What I have seen from the middle of Trump Country tells me that the president deserves to be impeached; he also deserves to be convicted in a U.S. Senate trial. The allegations leveled against him are far worse than anything that befell President Clinton in 1998 and rise at least to the level of what President Nixon faced in 1974 when he resigned.

House Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about an inappropriate relationship he had with a White House intern. Nixon quit before the House could impeach him for obstructing justice in the search for the truth behind the Watergate burglary in June 1972.

What does Donald Trump face? He is facing an accusation — which he more or less has admitted to doing — of soliciting a foreign government for a political favor. In exchange for the favor, which included digging up dirt on a potential political foe, the president would release weapons to Ukraine, which is fighting rebels backed by Russia.

The U.S. Constitution expressly forbids such activity. It cites “bribery” along with “treason” specifically as crimes for which a president can be removed from office. It isn’t treason, but it sure looks for all the world to me like bribery.

I fully expect to get some dipsh** responses from High Plains Blogger critics who think I’m whistlin’ Dixie with regard to the crimes I believe the president has committed. That’s fine. Let ’em gripe.

I stand by my assertion that Donald Trump has committed crimes that rise to the level of impeachment. They certainly are far more egregious than what ended up on President Clinton’s record.

The record as I’ve seen it pile up during the impeachment inquiry is replete with evidence of wrongdoing. The House and Senate Republican caucus, however, is equally replete with political cowardice among House members and senators who choose to stand with the president and refuse to stand for what they piously proclaim to be “the rule of law.”

And so, history is about to be made once again as one House panel passes the torch to another one. Let this lawful, constitutional and appropriate impeachment effort proceed.

State news

Will ‘Texodus’ cause loss of clout in Congress? Uhh, yes, it will

A headline in the Texas Tribune asks a question that borders on the preposterous.

“As experienced Texan congressmen retire, will the states’ sway in Congress decline?”

I have the answer: Yes. It will decline.

Both congressional chambers rely heavily on seniority. The more senior the members of the House and Senate, the more powerful committee assignments they get. They ascend to chairmanships or, if they’re in the House, they sit as “ranking members” of the minority party; a ranking member is deemed to be the senior member of the party that doesn’t control the chairmanship.

My former congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, is retiring at the end of next year; he won’t seek re-election to his umpteenth term in the House. He serves as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, a panel he chaired until Democrats took control of the House after the 2018 election.

Congressional power ebbs and flows. Texans who worry about such things need not fret over Texas’s loss of clout in the House. Indeed, if the state is turning into more of a “swing state,” Texas Democrats might find themselves elevated to positions of power formerly occupied by their Republican colleagues.

For the time being, though, the retirements of six Texas members of Congress does create a dwindling clout for the state on Capitol Hill.

However, it is likely far from a terminal ailment.

national news

Why not hear GOP version of events, too?

I have this kooky notion I feel like sharing. The House Intelligence Committee is going to issue a draft report Monday on its findings regarding the impeachment inquiry hearing it conducted with regard to Donald Trump, Ukraine and the allegation of, um, “bribery.” 

It will be a partisan report, authored by Democratic members and staffers. Why not allow the Republicans to issue their own version of events? Why not put the GOP response out there alongside the Democrats’ response and let the public decide which party is speaking to the issues and which one is seeking to deflect attention from the cause of this inquiry in the first place: the behavior of the president of the United States?

I am all for hearing how the Intel Committee Republicans justify their badgering, their hectoring, their seeking to undermine the motives behind the inquiry. I want the public to be able to digest both versions in real time and to decide which side has the facts on its side and which side is trying to provide cover for POTUS’s backside.

The Intel Committee will hand this investigation off to the Judiciary Committee, which begins its own hearings on Wednesday. I don’t know how the Judiciary panel will take. I hope they can wrap this up quickly, decide whether to adopt articles of impeachment and then send this matter to the House floor, where the Democrats are likely to impeach this presidential imposter.

But first … let’s hear how the GOP defends this guy’s impeachable conduct. Hey, fair is fair!